Shiba Inu
the meme coin that built a network
Key facts
- #37by market value
- Rank
- Meme coindog-themed, Ethereum-based
- Type
- 2020by Ryoshi
- Launched
- 1qnabout 410tn burned
- Supply
SHIB is a dog-themed meme coin created in 2020 by the pseudonymous Ryoshi, with a quadrillion-token supply, a famous 410 trillion burn and its own Shibarium network.
What it is
Shiba Inu, ticker SHIB, is a meme coin: a token whose origin is a joke rather than a technical breakthrough. It was created in August 2020 by an anonymous person or group using the name Ryoshi, borrowing the same Japanese dog breed that fronts Dogecoin and pitching itself as the “Dogecoin killer”. One quadrillion tokens were minted at launch, a deliberately absurd number, which is why prices are quoted in fractions of a penny. The memorable fact: Ryoshi sent half the entire supply, unasked, to Ethereum’s creator Vitalik Buterin, gambling that he would never touch it.
How it works
SHIB began as a standard token on the Ethereum blockchain, meaning it has no network of its own to secure and simply rides on Ethereum’s. Its value rests on community, scarcity arithmetic and attention rather than cash flows, which is true of every meme coin and worth stating plainly. The project has since built more around the token. Shibarium, launched in 2023, is a layer 2 network, a faster and cheaper lane that settles back to Ethereum, and it includes an automatic burn mechanism, destroying a portion of SHIB as the network is used so that supply falls over time. Companion tokens such as BONE, used for Shibarium fees, sit alongside SHIB in the ecosystem.
The story so far
The decisive moment came in May 2021. Buterin burned about 410 trillion of the tokens he had been given, removing roughly 40 percent of the supply forever, and donated a large part of the remainder to charity, including a Covid relief fund in India. Later that year SHIB reached its all-time high during the meme coin mania, briefly ranking among the largest crypto assets in the world. The years since have been a long descent from that peak, softened by a community, self-styled the Shib Army, that has kept building: Shibarium, burn campaigns and a steady stream of ecosystem projects.
Where it stands
As of late July 2026, SHIB ranks about 37th by market value at roughly $2.5 billion, with about 589 trillion tokens circulating, according to CoinGecko. That is well below its 2021 peak, and the burns, while constant, remove supply slowly against so vast a base. For a beginner the honest framing is this: SHIB is a bet on attention and community, not on revenue, and it shows how far those forces can carry a joke, in both directions. Worth watching are the pace of Shibarium activity and burning, and whether meme coins as a class hold their place in the market. Our crypto explainers hub offers grounding on how the wider crypto market works.