A brief history
Launched in August 2020 by a founder called Ryoshi, Shiba Inu (SHIB) was created as an Ethereum-based meme coin inspired by Dogecoin. According to the project's “woofpaper” (whitepaper), Shiba Inu was developed as the answer to a simple question: "What would happen if a cryptocurrency project was 100% run by its community?" Its founder Ryoshi attributes its origins to an "experiment in decentralized spontaneous community building." Since its founding, it has evolved into a decentralized ecosystem supporting projects such as an NFT art incubator and a decentralized exchange called Shibaswap.

SHIB in practice
The Shiba Inu ecosystem consists of three tokens: Shiba Inu (SHIB), Leash (LEASH), and Bone (BONE). LEASH is used as a store of value for ShibaSwap investors while BONE is ShibaSwap's governance token. SHIB is the ecosystem's foundational currency with a max supply of one quadrillion. The team behind the tokens has also created a decentralized exchange known as ShibaSwap, that allows users to "dig" (provide liquidity), "bury" (stake coins), "fetch" (retrieve tokens from Uniswap or SushiSwap) and swap coins. Users stake SHIB to mine BONE while earning interest in the process.