Exploring Shiba Inu - Meme Token or DeFi Star?

Jesse -

Gaining traction in the cryptosphere (SHIB is currently the world’s third most Googled cryptocurrency), many are not quite sure what to make of the latest meme token, Shiba Inu.

Shiba Inu has been called everything from a pump and dump scheme to a Dogecoin killer to DeFi’s next big thing. It also recently surpassed Bitcoin’s trading volume on the world’s third-largest exchange. Here we explore the nature of the token, what intrinsic value this top 15 biggest cryptocurrency holds, and take a look at how Shiba Inu coin works.

What Is Shiba Inu (SHIB)?

Launched in August 2020, Shiba Inu has risen in popularity due to its meme association and its role in the DeFi space. Leveraging the Dogecoin community, Shiba Inu gained an impressive following in a short space of time

Shiba Inu is often compared to the “original meme token” (DOGE) due to the shared dog breed they both celebrate. Dogecoin’s logo is centred off of a Shiba Inu meme that was circulating at the time of its creation. This has spurred a peculiar craze of meme-tokens that appear to be increasing by the day, largely due to the easy manner in which new tokens can be created these days.

While Shiba Inu ticks the box of a dog-themed meme token, it also holds a greater value due to its legitimate use case. The token is the native coin to the platform’s decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap. This ecosystem allows users to swap tokens and earn interest through the three coins, SHIB, BONE and LEASH (more on these below).

When Shiba Inu Coin Started

Created during the peak of the DeFi phenomenon, Shiba Inu was created by an anonymous entity going by the name of “Ryoshi”. Little is known about this character, however, in the project’s “woofpaper” (whitepaper), it alludes to there possibly being a few people behind the pseudonym.

According to the document, the platform was created for three reasons:

  • “We started from zero, with zero.”
  • “The brilliant minds behind Shib had never collaborated before.”
  • “We love Shiba Inu Dogs.”

While one might expect more revolutionary reasons to be behind the creation of a decentralized finance project, Shiba Inu appears to tick the necessary boxes with its own unique flair.

What Is ShibaSwap?

Behind the meme-token lies an interesting contribution to the DeFi space. Taking its own approach, the platform offers traders the option to earn extra tokens through staking and providing liquidity. This is done through SHIB’s accompanying tokens, BONE and LEASHon the platform’s ShibaSwap exchange (the ShibaSwap release date was September 2021).

All built on the Ethereum blockchain, the coins operating within the ecosystem allow for earning potential and staking functionality. The LEASH token was initially created to be pegged to the Dogecoin price however this changed after launch and the 107,646 tokens available can be used to provide “lucrative rewards for the holders providing its liquidity.”

Through staking LEASH tokens on the platform, users receive xLEASH tokens which provide access to the xLEASH liquidity pool. Through participating in the pool, users receive 0.5% of all BONE per block, while providing liquidity gets the user a share of the LEASH-ETH SSLP.

BONE on the other hand has a total supply of 250,000,000 and holds governance functionality. The token provides holders with the ability to vote on proposals via the platform’s Doggy DAO. The more BONE a user holds the more weight they hold in the voting system. Running in a similar fashion to the LEASH tokens, staking BONE provides users with tBONE rewards. This earns them 1% of all the BONE per block while providing liquidity rewards them with a share of the BONE-ETH SSLP.

These three tokens can be traded on the platform’s ShibaSwap exchange, with the intention being to add more coins in the future. According to the Shiba Inu website, ShibaSwap gives users the “ability to DIG (provide liquidity), BURY (stake), and SWAP tokens to gain WOOF Returns through its sophisticated and innovative passive income reward system.”

SHIB’s Total Supply

With an unusual beginning, the creators of Shiba Inu minted one quadrillion tokens prior to its launch. Of these one quadrillion tokens, they locked 50% (500 trillion) of them on Uniswap, threw away the private key, and gifted the remaining 50% to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

In an even more surprising move, Buterin donated 10% of this (roughly 50 trillion SHIB, worth $1.2 billion at the time) to a Covid relief fund in India and burned the rest. The burned tokens held a value of $6.7 billion at the time, however, at the end of October 2021, these would have amounted to $32.5 billion in value. The Shiba Inu community, known as the ShibArmy, have Buterin to thank.

Shiba Inu is an ERC-20 token and therefore new coins are created through the Shiba Inu mining process on the Ethereum blockchain (which currently uses a PoW consensus but is transitioning to a PoS mechanism). Wondering how to mine Shiba Inu coin? You can join a number of mining pools with little technical know-how necessary.

Shiba Inu Success

Thanks almost entirely to the community supporting the token, the rise and rise of SHIB has been fortuitous. In just 12 months the coin has increased 76,000,000%, reaching a high of $0.00008845 in late October 2021.

How To Get Your Hands On SHIB

While the network has rallied over 76,000,000% over the past 12 months, many investors are wondering will Shiba Inu coin reach $1? If you’re interested in learning how to invest in Shiba Inu coin, look no further.

You can buy, store, manage and trade SHIB through your Oobit account by simply using one of the convenient payment methods available. With the seamless platform, users have a secure place from where to buy Shiba Inu coin with a credit or debit card, and then store it in the unique Shiba Inu wallet created for the buyer.

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