Shiba Inu

The complete guide to buying Shiba Inu (SHIB)

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is an Ethereum-based meme coin that uses the well known Japanese breed of hunting dog as its mascot. Shiba Inu was created in August 2020 by an anonymous group or individual known as Ryoshi.

It is widely known as the “Dogecoin killer” because it is positioned as a direct alternative to Dogecoin. This article will help you understand how Shiba Inu works, how to buy SHIB, and where to buy Shiba Inu.

What is Shiba Inu?

Shiba Inu is classified as a meme coin because memes of a Shiba Inu dog (the same dog used in many depictions of Dogecoin) inspired it.

Its creator claims it was made to engender pure decentralization by putting the Shiba Inu community – also known as the SHIBArmy – in complete control of the coin. However, like all meme coins, Shiba Inu has limited utility, a low price per coin, and is seen as a purely speculative asset. 

Shiba Inu has capitalized on the functionalities of the Ethereum blockchain to differentiate itself from Dogecoin and other meme coins. Shiba Inu can run smart contracts, work with dApps, and it even launched its decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap, in July 2021.

Shiba Inu initially had about one quadrillion coins. The developer, Ryoshi, sent half the total coin supply to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin in what looked like a publicity stunt. Buterin would later donate 10% of the transferred coins (worth $1 billion at the time) to India’s COVID fund and burned the rest.

How does Shiba Inu work?

Shiba Inu is built on the Ethereum blockchain, which currently operates on a proof-of-work consensus mechanism. That will change, however, when Ethereum fully transitions to its proof-of-stake architecture.

Although Shiba Inu runs on Ethereum, it does not use the proof-of-work consensus mechanism because the maximum supply of SHIB was minted at launch. In other words, SHIB cannot be mined.

However, Shiba Inu does support staking. Stakers commit their coins to a staking pool and receive a share of all fees from the ShibaSwap exchange.

The Shiba Inu ecosystem has evolved beyond just SHIB, an ERC-20 token. It now includes the following:

SHIB Coin

The flagship asset of the Shiba Inu ecosystem. There are currently about 549 trillion of these ERC-20 tokens in circulation.

ShibaSwap

This decentralized exchange provides liquidity for the ecosystem by making it easy to swap cryptocurrencies.

BONE

Bone is the governance token for the Shiba Inu platform. BONE has 250 million tokens.

Shiba Inu Incubator

This incubator aims to discover, encourage, and promote creativity and ingenuity within the Shiba Inu ecosystem. One of the core functionalities of the incubator will be to enable artists to auction NFTs on a fully decentralized NFT market.

LEASH

This is another cryptocurrency within the Shiba Inu ecosystem with a total supply of 107,647 coins.

Shiboshis

These are 10,000 unique and collectible Ethereum-based Shiba Inu NFTs.

ShibaSwag

This is a proposed project that will launch NFTs with real-world applications.

How to buy Shiba Inu?

Shiba Inu coins are traded on most of the leading exchange platforms and are accessible to almost anyone who wants to buy. You can buy SHIB in your local currency or with existing crypto through centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges.

How to buy SHIB on a centralized exchange

Several centralized exchanges offer Shiba Inu, but be aware that giving personal information to satisfy the exchange’s know-your-customer (KYC) standards is a necessary step in the procedure.

The top centralized exchanges to buy Shiba Inu are:

• Binance
• Coinbase
• Huobi Global
• KuCoin
• Kraken
• eToro

Here’s how to buy Shiba Inu on a centralized exchange:

• Choose the exchange you want to buy Shiba Inu from.

• Register with the exchange and submit all required information to pass its KYC/AML checks. As part of the verification process, you will be asked to submit a government-approved ID and take selfies.

• Once verified, choose a payment method (typically credit/debit card or bank account), and link it to your new user account.

• Centralized exchanges usually have very clear buttons for buying crypto, so find it and choose SHIB from the following menu.

• Select the payment method you chose earlier, enter how much SHIB you want to buy, and process the transaction.

Unless you plan to sell in the very near future, it is advisable to pull your SHIB off the exchange on which you purchased it. This is because exchanges can take possession of your coins whenever they want, or if told to do so by a regulatory authority.

If you withdraw your SHIB to a wallet you have more control over your coins, with ultimate control coming through a non-custodial offline wallet, as described in our earlier section on Shiba Inu wallets.

How can I pay for Shiba Inu?

As mentioned above, centralized exchanges typically offer two payment methods for their coins, which we will discuss here.

Credit card/debit card

Several exchanges let you buy SHIB with a credit or debit card, provided your bank supports cryptocurrency payments. The process of linking your card to your exchange account is simple. Once connected, you can buy Shiba Inu whenever and wherever you like.

Buying with a credit/debit card is the quickest way to buy SHIB from an exchange.

Bank transfer

If using a credit card to buy cryptocurrency is not supported by your bank, bank transfers are a good workaround. Using this procedure you can buy Shiba Inu by depositing money into the exchange from your bank account and buying that way. This often takes longer but it is more foolproof.

Cryptocurrency

If you already have some cryptocurrency you can swap it for SHIB at the same exchanges. Find out what pairs SHIB is traded for on your exchange of choice (e.g. SHIB/BTC, SHIB/USDT), send your desired purchase value in the corresponding cryptocurrency (e.g. BTC / USDT) to the exchange, and swap one for the other.

How to buy SHIB through ShibaDEX

If you want to transact with more privacy, or don’t want your transactions logged and monitored, you can buy Shiba Inu on decentralized exchanges such as ShibaDEX.

Be aware that you can only buy SHIB at ShibaDEX with cryptocurrency, not fiat currencies.

ShibaDEX is a non-custodial wallet and decentralized exchange that supports popular meme coins such as SHIB, DOGE, BONE, LEASH, and GM. With ShibaDEX you can trade cryptocurrencies on several blockchain protocols, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.

In this section we discuss the process of how to buy SHIB through a desktop, but it is the same for mobile.

• Open the ShibaDEX webpage.

• Scroll down to the download section and download the app for desktop or mobile.

• Open the zip-file you downloaded and scroll down to find the “shibadex-desktop”. Click on it.

• Click “New Wallet” in the application interface when it opens.

• Fill in all the fields, note down your 24-word mnemonic seed, confirm the seed, choose a password, and agree to the terms of service.

• Log in to the wallet with your details. 

• In the list of assets, choose the cryptocurrency you want to swap for SHIB (e.g. BTC). A wallet menu will load up. You will find “Send”, “Receive”, and “Swap” at the top of the screen. Click on “Receive”.

• Copy the address and send the cryptocurrency to that address to the value of your intended SHIB purchase.

• Return to the wallet menu once the transaction is completed. At the top of the page, click “Swap”.

• On the Swap page, swap the deposited cryptocurrency for Shiba Inu.

Why Should I Buy Shiba Inu?

Although Shiba Inu has limited utility, there are various reasons that can make it a good buy.

Method of payment

Like other cryptocurrencies, Shiba Inu supports decentralized and anonymous digital payments, be they peer-to-peer or as a payment method for businesses. With Shiba Inu you can bypass financial restrictions imparted by traditional institutions and government regulators, while keeping your transactions pseudonymous.

Fully decentralized

As stated in the official “woofpaper” (i.e. whitepaper), Shiba Inu was designed to be fully decentralized. To reinforce this goal, the Shiba Inu team launched the ShibaSwap decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, which allows cryptocurrency users to bypass centralized exchanges and their AML requirements.

Very cheap

The ample supply and availability of Shiba Inu make each coin very cheap. Even at its peak, one coin sold for the equivalent of $0.00007956. The low price of each coin makes Shiba Inu an affordable way of getting into crypto.

Popularity

According to CoinMarketCap, Shiba Inu has a market capitalization of $5.7 billion at the time of writing and a fully diluted market cap of $6.1 billion. CoinMarketCap ranks Shiba Inu as the #14 largest cryptocurrency by market cap, which is a massive feat when you consider that there are over 10,000 cryptocurrencies globally.

This proves that SHIB certainly has its fair share of followers.

Listed on leading exchanges

In the cryptocurrency ecosystem, which exchanges your coin is listed on can make a big difference to its reputation. The SHIB token is available on many of the top exchanges in the world, including Binance, Coinbase, Huobi Global and eToro.

Widespread availability on the most popular exchanges makes it easy to buy and sell Shiba Inu anytime.

What is a Shiba Inu wallet?

A cryptocurrency wallet provides safe storage for your holdings, and a Shiba Inu wallet is no different. Cryptocurrency wallets allow users to buy, sell, hold, and invest their cryptocurrency holdings. 

There are various wallets open to SHIB holders, and they serve different purposes for different investor types. However, one thing is common across wallets – the wallet you choose to use must be capable of storing ERC-20 tokens.

The choice of wallet for your holdings depends on your goals. If your goal is to hold Shiba Inu long-term with the belief that it will eventually skyrocket in price, a hardware wallet may be the best option. 

Hardware wallets are physical devices that store your private keys (the crypto equivalent of an account password) in an offline environment, making it near-impossible for hackers to access them. Hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor support ERC-20 tokens and are good options for investors who want to hold on to SHIB long-term.

On the other hand, if you intend to actively trade/speculate or make payments with your holdings, a software wallet will be the optimal choice. Software wallets are accessible anywhere and through any device with a browser and internet connection. 

However, unlike hardware wallets, software wallets are more susceptible to hacks. You can reduce your exposure to the risk of being hacked by opting for a non-custodial wallet provider. A non-custodial wallet gives you complete control, custody, and responsibility for your private keys.

Many smartphones come with a built-in software wallet these days, but you can download software wallets that take SHIB, such as Exodus, Zengo, and Coinomi, very easily.

How does a Shiba Inu transaction work?

Because Shina Inu is based on the Ethereum blockchain, everything runs in the same way. This means that transaction speed and cost will depend on how empty or congested the network is at the time you send it.

Right now, if you want to send SHIB to someone you will need an amount of ETH in your wallet to pay the gas fee, which is what you pay to send the transaction to the blockchain. This will change in late 2022 when the Shibarium launches, which will see SHIB used as gas and will be much cheaper.

When a Shiba Inu transaction is submitted to the blockchain, it is bundled into a block containing all other transactions submitted within a 10-15 second ‘block time’ window and is picked up by a miner authenticate (the higher the gas fee paid, the quicker it will be picked up).

Once authenticated by the miner, the transactions are confirmed by a network of nodes and the funds are sent to the recipient. On average, it usually takes anywhere from 15 seconds to five minutes to complete a SHIB transaction, again depending how busy the Ethereum blockchain is.

If you decide to send SHIB, you can track transactions using Ethereum block explorers like Etherescan, Blockchair, or Ethplorer.

Are there any risks with Shiba Inu?

As with any cryptocurrency there are some risk with Shiba Inu: 

Excessive supply

Although SHIB has enjoyed impressive gains in the past, the fact that more than 500 trillion coins are circulating across the globe is a cause for concern. Excessive availability makes it easy for malicious actors to tamper with the ecosystem.

Limited utility

Despite having trillions of coins in circulation and new developments in the ecosystem, Shiba Inu still has minimal utility.

Longevity concerns

Although some investors may find Shiba Inu’s $5.7 billion market capitalization attractive and consider it an excellent reason to invest, Shiba Inu has never experienced a crypto bear market. Many new projects are abandoned during bear markets, especially those without obvious utility.

How is Shiba Inu shaping the future?

Although it has chosen to keep its “ruffmap” (roadmap) “top secret”, the Shiba Inu development team has released basic outlines of its plans for the future. One of the primary goals of the development team is to grow ShibaSwap and expand the number of pairs available on the decentralized exchange.

Shiba Inu also plans to create a core developer and OG Admins Fund which will provide financial relief for the development team and allow them to focus on the ecosystem full-time. This upgrade bodes well for the Shiba Inu ecosystem because it will translate to regular updates for the network and the possible development and release of innovative features.

Shiba Inu also intends to create an Ecosystem Development and Marketing fund to promote the ecosystem and “quickly expand on concepts from the top-secret 2021 RuffMap”.

If the RuffMap is as revolutionary as Shiba Inu presents it, and the development team can execute the plan, we may see Shiba Inu evolve beyond being just an ecosystem of meme coins with no utility.

Is Shiba Inu a good investment?

Shiba Inu’s price proved to be a great short term investment in the last bull run, but this doesn’t guarantee a profitable investment as it went down just as quickly. The only way to make money from Shiba Inu is to find someone willing to pay more for your coins than you did.

If Shiba Inu’s development team has concrete plans and ideas in the “top secret” ruffmap and they can follow through on those ideas we may see a future where Shiba Inu becomes an essential asset for your investment portfolio. 

However, Shiba Inu’s current primary purpose is serving as a speculative asset for people seeking to buy-low and sell-high, making it more useful as a form of digital currency than a long term hold.