The Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB) is a major contender for the meme coin throne, and is often referred to as the “Dogecoin killer” by its supporters.
As the coin continues to grow, more people are becoming interested in the token economics of this project and are finding themselves wondering how many Shiba Inu coins are in circulation.
Understanding Shiba Inu Currency (SHIB)
The Shiba Inu was created in August 2020 by pseudonymous developers. Unlike tokens that live on a dedicated network, SHIB is an ER-C20 token that resides on the Ethereum blockchain. As such, it has access to DeFi and related services, giving it an advantage over similar memecoins with lower interest.
This utility, coupled with the unusually high distinctive display, which we will discuss in the next section, proved to be a differentiating factor that helped the Shiba Inu stand out.
The ecosystem now includes projects like ShibaSwap (a decentralized exchange), NFTs, and the play-for-profit game Shiba Eternity.
With a dedicated community, the coin has grown in popularity to become one of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap today.
Total supply of Shiba Inu coins
The Shiba Inu supply at launch in 2020 was 1 quadrillion SHIB tokens, or one thousand trillion tokens. When SHIB was released, it had the largest supply of tokens in the world. Unsurprisingly, the massive rolling stock of the Shiba Inu made headlines and helped the project attract interest around the world.
It should be noted that a large offer does not necessarily impact the value or use case of a project, and many in the industry have viewed the offer as a gimmick. For new cryptocurrency users who are not familiar with token economics, it may also have seemed to them that SHIB tokens were “cheaper” than other cryptocurrency tokens, and therefore less expensive.
Of course, the price of an individual crypto token should not be confused with the value of the actual crypto project itself! We’ll look at how to understand cryptocurrency supply in more detail later, but first, let’s take a look at how many Shiba Inu coins are available today.
Current rolling supply of Shiba Inu
The SHIB cryptocurrency has not maintained its supply, and currently stands at 589 trillion SHIB. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sent 410 trillion tokens to a dead wallet in 2021, effectively destroying or “burning” the tokens and stating that he would donate the rest to charity.
The SHIB community as a whole has also burned or destroyed large portions of the initial supply in order to make the SHIB deflationary, meaning it becomes more scarce over time. In true cryptocurrency fashion, the community decides when these burns will occur democratically, with those with the most SHIB tokens having the most voting power.
While the development team is likely a major contributor, their identity is unknown and it is not clear who the key constituents in the community are.
This is intended to reduce the total amount of Shiba Inu coins in an attempt to make the tokens rarer and therefore worth more money. Again, this comes down to the percentage of supply owned by each investor. If an investor owns 10 tokens in a project with a supply of 100 tokens, he owns 10% of the total supply.
If the community burns 50 tokens and leaves only 50 in the total supply, the same investor now owns 20% of the total supply instead of 10%, and this could translate into an increase in value for that investor.
Of the 589 trillion tokens remaining in supply, a portion of them remain in locked or burned wallets, and this adds further scarcity to the token supply.
Why presentation matters to investors
The value of a cryptocurrency is the number of coins multiplied by the price of the coins.
Market value = price S Supply.
This applies to ordinary companies and their stocks as well.
For example, Apple Inc. shares are worth… $170 per sharewhile Berkshire Hathaway shares are worth $685,000 per share.
Is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway worth more than Apple?
no.
Apple is worth three and a half times as much as Berkshire Hathaway, with a market capitalization of $3.45 trillion versus $984 billion.
This is because Apple has more shares than Berkshire Hathaway. The number of shares doesn’t really affect a company’s price or value at all, it’s simply a somewhat arbitrary way of dividing up shares for sale.
Likewise, when someone buys SHIB tokens, They buy a percentage of the total supply.
So a project could have a lower nominal price than a SHIB, but be worth more due to having a higher market value.
Investors are not interested in how many units of a stock or cryptocurrency they own, but what value those units represent.
In short, investors need to consider the token price and total supply when calculating the market cap, and the market cap is the actual value of the project, not the token price.
The future of Shiba Inu supplies
The future of SHIB’s supply will play a major role in the project price.
Although burns are not usually announced ahead of time, they do occur regularly and can be tracked online through tools such as Shibburn’s account on x.com.
It is not clear how many SHIB tokens will be burned in the future, and the project team will likely use the burning mechanism in response to price headwinds as they see fit. Other price factors to monitor include community initiatives and staking activities as well as any strategic partnerships secured by the Shiba Inu.
Shiba Inu offer compared to other cryptocurrencies
As we now know, the supply of Shiba Inu is unusually high.
We also know that this supply alone does not determine the value of the cryptocurrency, but must be taken into account along with the token price and market capitalization.
Shiba Inu vs. Dogecoin (DOGE): Dogecoin has a circulating supply of approximately 141 billion DOGE. Unlike SHIB, which has an active burn mechanism, Dogecoin has an unlimited supply with annual inflation.
Shiba Inu vs. Bitcoin (BTC): Bitcoin is known for its limited supply of 21 million BTC, with over 19 million BTC already in circulation. Bitcoin also has a halving mechanism where the number of bitcoins minted each year is reduced by half every four years, making Bitcoin an increasingly scarce and deflationary asset. Unlike SHIB, Bitcoin halving is programmatic and pre-determined.
Bitcoin will halve its supply every four years and will stop minting new coins altogether in 2140. The certainty of this deflationary mechanism is one of the aspects of the Bitcoin project that has made it so valuable.
Frequently asked questions
How many Shiba Inu coins were initially issued?
Initially, a quadrillion Shiba Inu coins were issued when SHIB launched in August 2020.
How many Shiba Inu coins are left?
After the burn of Vitalik Buterin and ongoing community-led burns, the total circulating supply of Shiba Inu is approximately 589 trillion SHIB.
How many Shiba Inu coins are burned daily?
The number of SHIB tokens burned daily varies, as they are often community-driven. At the time of writing, more than two billion tokens have been burned in the past week.
How many Shiba Inu coins are mined daily?
Unlike Bitcoin, the Shiba Inu cannot be mined. The entire supply has been minted and issued at launch, and no new tokens will be generated.
Who has the most Shiba Inu?
Currently, the largest Shiba Inu holders include decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and wallets linked to community initiatives. Vitalik Buterin remains the main bearer, the other bearers are unknown.