10 things investors need to know about Shiba Inu (SHIB) in 2022

So, what is so special about this young pup that it beat pioneers like Bitcoin in terms of viewership? How did Shiba Inu get here?

To answer all that, here are 10 things you need to know about Shiba Inu (SHIB)-

Speculative asset

Shiba Inu was launched as a direct competitor of Dogecoin as a joke. Both Shiba Inu and Dogecoin come under the category of meme coin. The meme coin originated from a 2013 meme featuring the Japanese breed dog of the same name. What began as a community-driven token representing a meme grew into a multi-billion dollar crypto project.

Shiba Inu is a token, not a coin

What differentiates a token from a coin is that coins have their own blockchains, while tokens are created on top of existing blockchains. In the case of Shiba Inu, it doesn’t have its own blockchain.

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Dogecoin killer?

Shiba Inu’s official website listed SHIB as a Dogecoin killer for a long time. Shia Inu, along with Floki Inu, Doge Dash, and Dogelon Mars, uses the same dog-themed branding as Dogecoin, but Shib is the only one to challenge Dogecoin so far.

Since its inception, Shiba Inu has been nipping at the heels of its competitor, Dogecoin. As Dogecoin is similar to Bitcoin, it is still limited in on-chain features such as smart contracts. SHIB is an Ethereum-based token with smart contract capabilities, making it a Dogecoin competitor/killer.

Anonymous founder

The world still doesn’t know who Satoshi Nakamoto is other than the fact that he is the creator of Bitcoin. So, like Bitcoin, Shiba Inu was created anonymously under the pseudonym Ryoshi. Similarly, the world doesn’t know the brains behind this ecosystem. For all we know, Ryoshi could be an individual or a group.

Multi-token ecosystem

The Shiba Inu ecosystem consists of three tokens: Shiba Inu (SHIB), Leash (LEASH), and Bone (BONE). The SHIB token is the most prominent component of the Shiba Inu ecosystem.

Supports specific Defi products

Shiba Inu supports smart contracts, allowing users to lend and stake them, earning passive income in the form of recurring fees.

Elon Musk-driven

If a cryptocurrency has the support of Elon Musk, it is like getting the certified blue tick. Elon Musk and his tweets have a massive potential of making or breaking a cryptocurrency. Shiba Inu is fortunately on Elon Musk’s positive tweets. He even tweeted about getting a Shiba Inu dog, which gave the first major push to the SHIB token, driving it up by close to 300%.

Utility-driven ecosystem

Despite popular belief that a meme coin like SHIB is solely driven by hype and sentiment, the ecosystem actually supports a number of useful utilities, including NFTs and a Defi-platform in ShibaSwap. ShibaSwap’s mission is to provide a secure environment for cryptocurrency trading while remaining decentralized.

Fact Check: Shiba Inu is currently working on its Layer-2 protocol or Shibarium to add other utilities and lower the existing transaction fees.

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Volatile penny cryptocurrency

Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky due to the volatile nature of the market and also the lack of regulation. And altcoins or meme coins present an additional challenge. Even exchanges that list meme coins list them with a hint of caution. This brings to the fact that despite the useful use cases, the near-550 trillion total supply, and a market cap well above $19 billion, Shiba Inu remains a speculative crypto asset, though with a deflationary lineage.

Therefore, DYOR before trading or investing in this high-risk asset.

The Vitalik connection

Well, here is an interesting story. The creator of Shiba Inu, Ryoshi, sent 50% of Shiba Token to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

We don’t know for sure whether it was sent for safekeeping or as a marketing vigil. Buterin donated the cumulative value of more than 50 trillion Shiba Inu coins to a COVID-19 relief fund in India. Shortly after that, Buterin “burned”—or permanently removed from circulation 90% of the remaining supply by sending it over to an inaccessible wallet.

Conclusion

With the year that Shiba Inu had in 2021, we could go on and on about this token’s technical and use-case-specific aspects. But keeping in mind that Shiba Inu is comparatively new, these are the ten pointers that you need to be aware of to understand risks, rewards, and everything else of relevance.

Coming to SHIB, it is still a volatile crypto asset and requires a proper understanding of the meme coins, risk analysis, and other pointers for you to proceed.

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