Shiba Inu (SHIB)
Summary
Shiba Inu (SHIB) is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 meme token launched in August 2020 by an anonymous founder operating under the pseudonym 'Ryoshi.' It has grown into a broader ecosystem encompassing ShibaSwap (a decentralized exchange), Shibarium (an Ethereum Layer 2 network), and a multi-token system (SHIB, LEASH, BONE, TREAT). The project is ranked approximately #31 by market cap (~$3.8B as of May 2026) but carries material risks including both founders' anonymity, a history of infrastructure failures and a confirmed bridge hack, significant whale concentration, internal community fraud allegations against its current lead developer, and its fundamentally speculative meme-driven value proposition.
Timeline(12 events)
2020-08-01
Shiba Inu (SHIB) token launched on Ethereum by anonymous founder 'Ryoshi.' One quadrillion tokens minted; 50% sent to Vitalik Buterin, 50% locked in Uniswap.
Wikipedia / IQ.wiki2021-05-12
Vitalik Buterin burns 410 trillion SHIB (approximately 41% of total supply) and donates ~$1.14B equivalent to India COVID-Crypto Relief Fund and other charities.
BeInCrypto2021-10-27
SHIB reaches all-time high price. The token had appreciated approximately 150,000,000% since launch.
CoinGecko2021-12-21
Canadian healthcare company Ask The Doctor publicly accuses SHIB of fraud and threatens to file a lawsuit in the United Kingdom against the anonymous developers.
CoinTelegraph2022-05-31
Ryoshi deletes all Twitter posts and Medium blog entries, including the founding post 'All Hail the Shiba,' and exits the project without public explanation.
CoinTelegraph2023-08-16
Shibarium mainnet launches. Within hours, the network experiences a critical failure: approximately $1.7M in ETH and $750K in BONE become trapped in the bridge contract. Network taken offline.
Decrypt2023-08-25
Shibarium relaunches successfully after infrastructure upgrades and network optimization.
BeInCrypto2025-02-01
Community SHIB burn tracker @shibburn publicly accuses lead developer Shytoshi Kusama of fraud, unauthorized 'official' project designations, and promoting pump-and-dump tokens.
Bitcoinist2025-02-15
SEC Division of Corporation Finance states in guidance that meme coins including SHIB are 'not securities but more like digital collectibles.'
The Market Periodical2025-09-12
Shibarium bridge suffers a $2.4M flash loan exploit. Attacker gains control of 10 of 12 validator signing keys and drains approximately 224 ETH and 92.6 billion SHIB. Bridge frozen; security firms engaged.
The Block / Crypto.news2026-03-19
SEC and CFTC jointly classify SHIB as a 'digital commodity' in a report covering 16 major cryptocurrencies, alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP.
The Market Periodical2026-05-12
SHIB ranked approximately #31 by global market cap at approximately $3.8B. Circulating supply approximately 590 trillion tokens.
CoinGeckoThis investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain and source URLs are archived via the Internet Archive.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/13/2026, 3:12:41 AM
avoid.net — verified advice for a post-truth world