Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a community-driven cryptocurrency launched in August 2020 by an anonymous founder known as Ryoshi. Created as an Ethereum-based alternative to Dogecoin and branded around the same Shiba Inu dog, it became one of the best-known meme coins during the 2021 market cycle. Over time the project has tried to grow beyond its meme origins into a broader ecosystem of decentralized finance tools.

SHIB is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, so it relies on Ethereum's Proof of Stake network for security rather than having its own miners or validators. The token launched with a quadrillion-unit supply, and a large portion was sent to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who burned roughly 410 trillion SHIB in 2021 — one of the largest token burns in crypto history — and donated much of the rest to charity. There is no additional issuance, and community burn initiatives continue to remove tokens from circulation.

The wider ecosystem

The project describes itself as fully community-owned, with a global following known as the ShibArmy. Its ecosystem includes ShibaSwap, a decentralized exchange for trading and earning rewards, and Shibarium, a Layer 2 network launched in 2023 to offer faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum mainnet.

Shiba Inu uses a three-token model: SHIB is the primary currency for trading and payments, LEASH is a scarce token aimed at dedicated supporters, and BONE serves as the governance token for the Doggy DAO and the gas token on Shibarium. Like other meme-origin assets, SHIB's market activity is driven largely by community sentiment, though the surrounding infrastructure gives it more functional surface area than most tokens in the category.