Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a fungible cryptocurrency token on Ethereum that underpins the Shiba Inu ecosystem of applications and tokens. It launched in 2020 and is issued as an ERC-20 asset, meaning it follows Ethereum’s standard for interchangeable tokens.

Within the project’s stack, SHIB functions as the ecosystem’s primary token alongside companion tokens such as BONE and LEASH, and it is supported across the project’s own products, including the ShibaSwap decentralised exchange and the Shibarium network. Details on those components are covered in their respective sections.

SHIB’s branding references the Shiba Inu dog breed and the wider community around it, but the token itself is a standard Ethereum ERC-20 that can be held in any compatible wallet and traded on DEXs or exchanges that list it. For supply mechanics and burns, see “Is SHIB deflationary? How do SHIB burns work?”

Transacting and holding value on Ethereum and Shibarium: SHIB is an ERC-20 token that can be bridged from Ethereum to Shibarium and back, allowing holders to move the asset across the ecosystem and use it in apps on either network. See the official bridge guides for deposit/withdraw flows and supported standards.

Trading and liquidity on ShibaSwap: SHIB can be swapped against other tokens and supplied to liquidity pools on ShibaSwap (v1/v2). Liquidity providers earn trading fees and manage concentrated-liquidity positions in v2. For a basic-to-advanced overview, see the official docs.

Staking (“Bury 2.0”) for governance voting power: SHIB may be locked in Bury 2.0 to obtain voting power (veTokens) for ecosystem governance. Bury 2.0 is for governance power only; rewards are not live (docs: ‘currently does not offer staking rewards—staking is for voting power only’). For fee mechanics and gas tokens, see the dedicated sections.

Payments via third-party processors: Some payment gateways (e.g., BitPay) list SHIB, enabling spend at supported merchants. These integrations are external to the project and may change over time.

General dApp utility on Shibarium: Once bridged, SHIB can be used within Shibarium dApps (DeFi, marketplaces, creator tools). For network capabilities and use-case overviews, refer to the official Shiba Inu documentation. For gas usage on Shibarium, see “How do gas fees work…”.

SHIB’s supply can decrease over time through on-chain “burns” that permanently remove tokens from circulation. Historic and ongoing mechanisms include a one-off burn by Vitalik Buterin in May 2021 and a Shibarium-linked process that converts part of Layer-2 fees into SHIB and sends them to a burn address.

Shibarium-linked burn mechanism: On Shibarium, each transaction pays gas in BONE. The base fee portion accumulates in a dedicated contract; once a defined threshold is reached, anyone can trigger the burn via the official ShibTorch interface. The flow is: (1) accumulated BONE is bridged to Ethereum, (2) swapped for SHIB on L1, then (3) the SHIB is sent to a dead wallet. The official docs and announcements describe this process and provide the entry points to participate. For how gas works on Shibarium, see the fees section.

Who can initiate burns and what portion of fees are burned? Burns can be initiated permissionlessly once the contract shows enough accumulated fees; you sign a small gas transaction to start and complete the burn cycle. Official materials indicate the mechanism uses a defined share of Shibarium base fees for SHIB burns (with the remainder routed to ecosystem allocations), and the dashboard lists completed burns.

As mentioned above, in May 2021, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sent ~410 trillion SHIB to a dead address, permanently removing those tokens from supply; this was a one-time event unrelated to Shibarium.

For gas specifics and cost comparison, see “How do gas fees work when transacting SHIB on Ethereum vs Shibarium?”. For broader network context, see “What is Shibarium and how does it relate to Shiba Inu (SHIB)?”

Shibarium is an Ethereum Layer-2 network built for the Shiba Inu ecosystem. It uses a Proof-of-Stake architecture (Heimdall + Bor) that anchors security to Ethereum while providing faster, lower-cost transactions. The network’s native staking and gas token is BONE, not SHIB.

How it relates to SHIB:

• Settlement & compatibility: Shibarium is EVM-compatible, so apps that support ERC-20 tokens can integrate SHIB when bridged to L2. The official bridge supports SHIB and other standards (ERC-20, ERC-721, ERC-1155) with mapped supply across L1↔L2.
• Movement between chains: Users can move SHIB between Ethereum and Shibarium via the official bridge. Withdrawals back to Ethereum offer two paths with different trade-offs: PoS (faster) or Plasma (more security checks).
• Fees & explorers: Activity on Shibarium pays gas in BONE; network details and gas trackers are available on the official explorer. For a comparison of gas on Ethereum vs Shibarium, see the dedicated fees section.
• Burn linkage: A portion of Shibarium base fees is periodically converted to SHIB on Ethereum and sent to a burn address via the official burn flow (“ShibTorch”). For mechanics and caveats, see the burns section above.

On Ethereum (L1): Any SHIB transfer or smart-contract interaction (e.g., DEX swap, approvals) pays gas in ether (ETH), not in SHIB. Fees follow Ethereum’s EIP-1559 model: a protocol-set base fee (burned) plus a user-set priority fee (tip) to validators. Gas usage depends on what the transaction does; wallets estimate fees at send time.

On Shibarium (L2): Transactions pay gas in BONE, the network’s native gas/staking token. Official network details list the currency symbol as BONE and point to the Shibarium explorer for tracking. Shibarium also uses an EIP-1559-style fee structure; the base fee portion from activity is accumulated and later converted to SHIB and sent to a burn address via the project’s “ShibTorch” process, while priority fees reward validators. Mechanics of this burn are covered in the burns section.

Practical takeaways:

• You need ETH in your wallet to send or trade SHIB on Ethereum. You need BONE to transact on Shibarium. SHIB itself is the asset being moved, not the gas.
• Fees on both networks vary with network demand and the complexity of the action (simple transfers vs contract interactions). Check current estimates in wallet prompts or the relevant explorers. For how EIP-1559 works on Ethereum, see the Ethereum docs; for Shibarium’s fee-linked SHIB burns, see the dedicated burns section.

ShibaSwap is the Shiba Inu ecosystem’s decentralised exchange. It runs on Ethereum and Shibarium, offering two versions: v1 (classic AMM) and v2 (concentrated-liquidity DEX). v2 is built on a Uniswap v3–style architecture tailored for the Shiba ecosystem.

Swap SHIB and other tokens: Connect a wallet and trade directly on-chain. Both v1 and v2 support token swaps; v2 adds features like improved routing.

Provide liquidity in SHIB pairs to earn trading fees: You can supply liquidity (e.g., SHIB/ETH) and earn a share of pool fees. On v2, liquidity sits in price ranges and each position is an NFT, which allows more capital-efficient provisioning but requires management to stay “in range”. Out-of-range positions don’t earn fees and are exposed to impermanent loss.

Optional yield farming (“Woof”) on Ethereum: LP tokens from Ethereum pools (SSLP) can be staked in Woof to earn BONE incentives; yield farming is available on Ethereum only. This sits on top of the trading-fee earnings from your liquidity position.

Getting started and tooling: ShibaSwap provides beginner and advanced guides for swapping, liquidity and managing positions, plus an SDK for builders who want to integrate ShibaSwap v2 routing or liquidity into apps.

BONE is the companion token that powers the Shibarium network. It is the gas token for all transactions on Shibarium (you pay fees in BONE, not SHIB) and the staking token that validators and delegators lock to secure the chain; Shibarium’s PoS design is inspired by Polygon PoS but uses BONE for staking and governance.

BONE also features in ecosystem governance: via Bury 2.0 you can lock BONE to obtain voting power (veTokens) used in SHIB DAO’s off-chain, gasless voting system. (See the governance section for details on proposals and voter eligibility.)

How BONE relates to SHIB: While BONE is not SHIB’s gas token, activity on Shibarium links back to SHIB through the project’s burn design: network upgrades introduced an on-chain burn contract so that a defined share of base fees is periodically converted into SHIB on Ethereum and sent to a burn address. (See the burns section for the mechanics and caveats.)

LEASH is an ecosystem token that confers access and perks across Shiba Inu products. Official materials show LEASH being used to unlock priority windows for NFT sales and other gated events, for example early purchase access in the SHEboshis drop and initial land-bid access for SHIB: The Metaverse.

LEASH can also be locked in Bury 2.0 to obtain voting power for SHIB DAO alongside the other ecosystem tokens. (Rewards are not the goal of Bury 2.0; it issues governance veTokens.)

Current status of LEASH (contract migration): In August 2025 the team disclosed that LEASH v1 still contained a latent rebase pathway that altered total supply; a LEASH v2 migration with an audited, fixed-supply ERC-20 and a no-mint migrator has been announced and audited, with a phased holder migration plan. Only follow the official migration portal when it goes live.

In short: BONE runs Shibarium (gas, staking, governance) and indirectly supports SHIB via fee-linked burns; LEASH provides access rights and perks within the ecosystem and is moving to a v2 contract as per the official plan.

TREAT is an ERC-20 token introduced by the Shiba Inu team to power engagement rewards, feature access and governance across the Shib ecosystem. It launched on Ethereum on 14 January 2025, with the official contract published by Shiba Inu’s channels; integration to Shibarium is planned after the initial Ethereum phase.

Access & engagement: Shib’s official materials describe TREAT as a “Transactional Rewards for Engagement and Access Token” used to unlock features in the Shib Operating System and to distribute activity-based rewards across apps and programmes. Airdrop and OS pages list TREAT among tokens tied to ecosystem rewards.

Governance: TREAT participates in SHIB DAO. Holders can lock TREAT in Bury 2.0 to obtain voting power (veTokens). Within the DAO suite, a dedicated TREAT DAO focuses on decisions about rewards distribution and utility features. (Bury 2.0 issues voting power; it is not a yield product.) See the governance section for details.

Developer & L3 roadmap: In the Shib Alpha Layer developer stack, the official faucet dispenses TREAT test tokens for rollup building and testing. Shiba Inu’s magazine further states TREAT will interface with the forthcoming privacy-oriented Layer-3, which aims to use FHE (via Zama) for encrypted computation.

Not a gas or validator token: TREAT is not used to pay Shibarium gas and is not a validator reward; gas on Shibarium is paid in BONE. For fee behaviour, see “How do gas fees work…”.

ShibaSwap incentives today: Official ShibaSwap docs continue to show BONE as the yield-farming incentive on Ethereum (“Woof”). Any changeover would be announced in official channels. See the ShibaSwap section for mechanics.

Shiboshis are a collection of 10,000 Shiba Inu–themed NFTs created by the Shiba Inu project and issued on the Ethereum blockchain. They are part of the official Shiba Inu ecosystem and can be viewed and traded through the project’s own pages and major NFT marketplaces.

Direct link to SHIB: Shiboshis include an on-chain rename feature. Each rename carries a fee that is sent to the official SHIB burn address, permanently removing that amount of SHIB from circulation. This mechanism is documented by the project’s official news site. For broader burn mechanics see “Is SHIB deflationary? How do SHIB burns work?”.

Game and app utility: Shiboshis are used as characters within the Shiba Inu gaming stack. The official Shiba Eternity site references training with your Shiboshi, and recent official articles discuss how Shiboshi traits map to gameplay. The project’s magazine has also announced Agent Shiboshi features that include SHIB-burning duels. These game ties are ecosystem features; exact fees, rules and rewards may change over time.

Identity and access: Beyond games, official materials position Shiboshis as profile and access assets inside the community’s apps and tournaments. For the separate SHEboshis line (a later, DN404-based collection), see the project’s NFT overview; it is distinct from the original Shiboshis.

They are culturally linked but technically separate. Both projects use the Shiba Inu dog motif and large online communities, which leads to frequent comparisons. Beyond branding, they are different networks and assets with no protocol-level linkage. Dogecoin is its own blockchain, while SHIB is a token that lives on Ethereum and can also circulate on Shibarium via bridging.

Core differences:

• Network design: Dogecoin is a proof-of-work blockchain that uses the Scrypt algorithm and has supported merged mining with Litecoin since 2014. SHIB is an ERC-20 token issued on Ethereum and used across the Shiba Inu ecosystem, including Shibarium (an Ethereum Layer 2).
• Fees and gas: Dogecoin transactions consume DOGE on the Dogecoin L1. SHIB transactions consume ETH on Ethereum and BONE on Shibarium; SHIB itself is not used as gas. For Shibarium, a portion of base fees is periodically converted to SHIB and burned on Ethereum. See the gas and burns sections for details.
• Supply mechanics: Dogecoin has ongoing issuance rather than a fixed cap, as explained by the project’s own FAQ. SHIB’s supply can decline via on-chain burn mechanisms managed by the Shiba Inu project.

Bottom line: the relationship is mainly historical and cultural. Dogecoin is a standalone payment-focused L1 started in 2013, while SHIB is an Ethereum-based token launched in 2020 that anchors a broader ecosystem running on Ethereum and Shibarium. For ecosystem components and roles, see the sections on Shibarium, ShibaSwap, and companion tokens.

Shiba Inu governance is organised under “Doggy DAOs” and a unified Shib DAO portal. Decisions range from protocol upgrades to community funding. Voting is conducted on Shibarium and is described by the official docs as gasless.

Who can participate: Holders of SHIB, BONE, LEASH or TREAT can take part. You may vote with the ERC-20 balance itself or by locking tokens in Bury 2.0 to mint time-weighted veTokens that carry voting power. Bury 2.0 is for governance power, not yield; early withdrawals incur a penalty.

Bury 2.0 and voting power: Locking increases weight linearly with time up to a 4-year maximum, then decays as the lock approaches expiry. The docs show example weights and note that voting power is recalculated on a schedule.

Proposal flow: Proposals follow a standard lifecycle: community discussion, formal draft, voting window, then execution if approved. The docs outline types such as protocol upgrades, fee or reward changes, funding requests and emergency actions, with quorum and timelock concepts defined.

Voting mechanisms, four strategies are available and chosen per proposal:

• ERC-20 token voting (token-weighted)
• veToken voting (time-locked weight)
• Identity-based (one person, one vote)
• Quadratic (square-root weighting)

These apply across the BONE, TREAT, SHIB and LEASH DAOs.

Delegation: You can delegate your voting power to a trusted participant and retain control to reclaim it for key decisions.

Beyond governance, BONE secures Shibarium’s consensus: validators and delegators stake BONE on Ethereum to run the network and earn BONE rewards. This is separate from DAO voting, but it places BONE at the core of network operations.

Development across the Shiba Inu ecosystem is coordinated by the project’s own team, with updates and technical notices published on the official blog by core contributors such as Shytoshi Kusama and Kaal Dhairya. These posts cover launches, incident responses and roadmap changes for Shibarium and related apps.

Shibarium network operations: The Shibarium blockchain itself is run by a decentralised set of validators and nodes rather than a single operator. Validators stake BONE to secure the network and earn rewards; operation, maintenance and best-practice guidance are documented in the official validator runbooks.

Codebases and developer tooling: The team maintains Shibarium’s code (forks of Polygon’s Bor/Heimdall and related contracts) and SDKs in the project’s GitHub spaces alongside documentation and quickstarts for builders.

Domain-specific components: Certain verticals are built with external specialists under the project’s direction (for example, The Third Floor for SHIB: The Metaverse), while protocol and network matters remain under the Shiba Inu team’s remit and the validator set on Shibarium.

For how decisions are made by token holders (proposals, voting, veTokens), see the governance section.

Shiba Inu was created in 2020 by a pseudonymous founder known as Ryoshi. Official project materials and archives consistently credit Ryoshi as the originator and outline an early vision centred on a decentralised, community-driven experiment.

Ryoshi later withdrew from public view, deleting prior posts and profiles; the project’s own publications note this departure and treat Shiba Inu as a community project that continued beyond the founder’s presence.

Since Ryoshi’s exit, public coordination and technical updates have been led through official channels by core contributors, including Shytoshi Kusama, who describes joining as a community holder before taking on a leadership role. For how ongoing development is organised, see the above section.