Shiba Keeps Shipping: A Fast-Growing Ecosystem

Shiba Inu may be a meme coin but it’s not just relying on the meme to do the work. While not taking itself too seriously, Shiba is continuously shipping products. It has rolled out a dex: Shibaswap. Soon, a Layer 2 of its own making will be released: Shibarium. And there’s much more, including a game.

It’s been only a year since the launch of its decentralized exchange Shibaswap, but Shiba Inu is making it clear that it wants to leverage its meme and community in many ways by actually giving them tools.

For example, Shiba has its collection of NFTs, and a Hollywood design studio is set to work to build its metaverse. There are plans for a stablecoin (SHI), and the Shiba Inu game is in the pilot phase.

What is Shibarium?

Shibarium will tie many of the above products together. The testnet of this Layer 2 is expected to launch in the coming months, and a public beta soon thereafter. Shiba Inu will then have its own blockchain. Not quite though, as Shibarium will be a Layer 2 and SHIB (an ERC20-token) will remain connected to Ethereum. As with other Layer 2’s, Shibarium is a solution to route transaction volume from expensive Ethereum to an additional layer. It will enable rapid, low-cost transactions optimized for gaming.

According to the foundation and development team, hard work is being done in the background. Devs are in the process of deploying the second private Shibarium Alpha TestNet. Also, tools for end-user interaction such as wallets, block explorers, and token transfer bridges are developed. Trusted testers will then get private invitations. The team will use all the feedback to improve the network and tools, before finally releasing a public Beta TestNet.

Rumors about a September release

Rumors about a September 2022 Shibarium release started circulating after Unification xFund, the firm behind Shibarium, revealed in a blog post that Shibarium public beta testnet will be released in Q3 of 2022. One moderator tweeted the date of September 30 but later deleted the tweet. The Shiba Inu team came up with a declaration that the release of Shibarium won’t take place in September.

Impression of the to-be-released Shibarium bridge. Source

Shiba Inu wants to build a whole ecosystem of applications using Shibarium. The following are the most prominent ones.

ShibaSwap

Shibaswap is a decentralized exchange (dex) on which SHIB can be exchanged for other coins. The value locked of Shibaswap is around 50 million. That’s of course not much compared to dexes like Uniswap, where the value is in the billions.

To get a feeling for the playful way in which the Shiba Inu team communicates, we quote them explaining ShibaSwap:

“SHIB, LEASH, and BONE, come together to create ShibaSwap, the next evolution in DeFi platforms. ShibaSwap gives users the ability to DIG (provide liquidity), BURY (stake), and SWAP tokens to gain WOOF Returns through our sophisticated and innovative passive income reward system.”

The role of BONE in Shibarium

BONE is the governance token of the ShibaSwap ecosystem. It allows holders to vote on proposals. Also, after the so-called Bone proposal got accepted by a large majority, BONE is destined to become the ‘gas’ of the Shibarium Protocol. In other words, BONE will enable executing smart contracts and transactions.

Also, in Shibarium, validators will be rewarded in BONE for their work. A minimum amount of 20 million BONE will be needed to become a validator.

The Bone proposal vote has also resulted in a decision about the supply cap of BONE. No more than 250 million will be in existence. With this supply cap set and a strong use case added, BONE might gain traction. Of course, the price action will depend on the total number of users of Shibarium and therefore by the broader adoption of Shiba Inu and Shibarium.

The price of BONE has been increasing at a nice rate, especially since Aug 22 of 2022.

The price of BONE in recent months

Shiboshi NFTs

Released in the fall of 2021, the ten thousand Shiboshi’s sold out in 35 minutes. The NFTs will play a large role in the Shiba Inu game (see below). The Shiba Inu metaverse will also have an integration with the NFTs. The floor price on OpenSea is currently around 0.9 ETH.

SHIB The Metaverse

The Shiba Metaverse is a project featuring virtual real estate – Shiba Inu Lands – that can also give users a passive income. Holders of Shiboshi NFTs get land in this Metaverse.

In July 2022, the lead developer of ShibaSwap, Shytoshi Kusama, announced that SHIB: The Metaverse will be produced by renowned Hollywood studio The Third Floor. It’s a top studio, which has worked with Marvel. It will design and build SHIB the Metaverse.

The Shiba Inu Game

The Shiba Inu Games is now called Shiba Eternity. It will be a multiplayer collectible card game, with 1000 SHIB-inspired cards. Testing has started in Vietnam, for the mobile version. Here’s an impression posted by a player. There will also be an NFT game, which will also use Shiboshi NFTs.

Still from a pilot game of Shiba Eternity

In the works: Stablecoin SHI

SHI is the proposed stablecoin for the Shiba Ecosystem. It is still in the works and scheduled to be released in 2022. According to lead developer ‘Shytoshi Kusama’, it will be an experimental stablecoin. From his blog post, we can gather that the SHI stablecoin would use a new token, called TREAT, as one of the mechanisms to maintain the peg. It sounds a bit like the Terra/Luna design but, to be fair, the exact mechanics are still not known.

Conclusion

The advancement of Shiba Inu ecosystem – like that of its fellow canine coins Floki and Doge (see here for a comparison between Shiba Inu and Doge) – goes to show that meme coins (which many crypto influencers scoffed at during the previous bull run) are probably here to stay. Their developer teams have just reversed the usual order of crypto development. First, they launch the meme and build a community. Second, they start building and shipping products for that community. Shiba seems to be perfecting that particular roadmap. It remains to be seen, of course, if these products will actually get traction.

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