Shiba Inu (SHIB) is one of the most well-known meme crypto coins, which was created as a “Dogecoin killer.”
The Shiba coin quickly gained popularity among the community after its launch in August 2020. It also attracted thousands of investors who missed the pump of dogecoin, which is around since 2013. And to our surprise, it holds its value relatively well.
The Shiba ecosystem has grown significantly from being just a meme token. It includes its own decentralized exchange called ShibaSwap, as well as LEASH and BONE tokens, provided as rewards to liquidity providers, and its own set of NFTs, Shiboshi.
In this article, we’ll look at how many Shiba Inu coins are there and what wallets hold the majority of SHIB.
How Many Shiba Inu Coins are there
Today there are actually fewer SHIB coins in circulation than there were during the launch in 2020.
That’s because Shiba Inu is deflationary. Meaning that the supply of coins will decrease over time, making it more valuable in the long term.
The initial total supply of SHIB was 1 quadrillion tokens. The first big burning happened half a year after the launch when Shiba’s founder sent half the supply to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
But to a surprise, Buterin decided to burn 90% of his share, and the remaining 10% was sent to charity. These tokens would have been later worth billions of dollars. But only hypothetically, since the popularity of this token skyrocketed only after this move.
However, as we said in the beginning of this part, it’s not entirely true that SHIB is deflationary. Shiba Inu is regularly burned, but only by investors initiative.
Because Shiba has an unlimited supply, the community has been quite vocal about making the coin more sustainable by lowering the circulating supply. In response, the developers deployed a coin burn portal, with the name SHIBABURN, in April 2022.
Users who decide to burn their coins will get another token called $burntSHIB, which pays rewards in RYOSHI tokens. RYOSHI is a reflection token that distributes 0.49% of all RYOSHI transactions made to burtnSHIB holders.
Is Burning Shiba Inu Coins Worth it
Whether burning Shiba Inu is worth it or not is up to your decision.
It might be really worth it if the burning continues for a few more years and you decide to hold through this time. On the other hand, for short-term investing, 0.49% APR is not worth considering RYOSHI’s low trading volume.
That’s also shown by the data published by a popular cryptocurrency analytic data platform IntoTheBlock, which reports addresses holding SHIB for more than a year increased their balance by roughly 57%.
If you hold SHIBA long-term, the coin might highly rise in value as the supply will lower.
And also, the transaction volume of RYOSHI tokens might be higher, meaning more rewards for you if the community keeps up with the burning process.
How Many Shiba Inu Holders are there
Shortly before the coin’s all-time high, SHIB surpassed the one-million holder mark. And the growth continued.
According to data from CoinCarp, there are more than 1.3 million holders of Shiba Inu as of February. The graph also shows that there are roughly one thousand new holders every month.
Who Owns the Most Shiba Inu Coin
The largest address, with over 410 trillion coins, holds 41% of the SHIB supply. However, that’s a dead address that Buterin used to burn part of the initial supply.
But the biggest wallet with Shiba Inu still in circulation belongs to Binance, containing nearly 47 trillion coins, which made around 4.8% of the supply.
The top 5 wallets all belong to exchanges. The first wallet that is not labeled on none of the crypto whale trackers takes sixth place with 10 trillion coins, accounting for 1% of the supply.
Conclusion
Shiba Inu coin is a relatively new meme-coin that has gained a lot of attention from the community.
Although Shiba launched with an initial supply of 1 quadrillion, 50% was burned shortly after by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
However, as SHIB has an unlimited supply, the founder created a burning portal to make the coin more sustainable.
As for the question of who holds the most, there are many investors and traders who are heavily invested in Shiba, and the biggest wallet, belonging to Binance, holds around 41% of the supply, with 410 trillion coins.