Deep Dive Into ShibaSwap [The Decentralized Exchange of the Shiba Inu Coin]

If you’ve been in the crypto space for the past two years then you’ve probably heard of meme coins like Dogecoin or the Shiba Inu coin. 

These dog-themed cryptocurrencies have brought some eye-watering returns for investors. Especially the Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB), which grew an astonishing 49,000,000% in 2021 alone, making many retail investors millionaires in the process.

Aiming to make SHIB more than just another meme coin, the Shiba Inu community is building an exciting ecosystem around this cryptocurrency. One of the most interesting Shiba Inu protocols is its own decentralized exchange — ShibaSwap.

This deep dive will take a look at ShibaSwap, the yield farming possibilities it offers, and the tokens powering this DEX. 

What Is ShibaSwap

ShibaSwap is the decentralized exchange (DEX) of the Shiba Inu ecosystem.

The difference between centralized exchanges and decentralized ones like ShibaSwap is that DEXes enable users to swap assets without an intermediary or third party. Meaning that no entity is ever in the control or ownership of user assets.

ShibaSwap offers many of the same functionalities as other decentralized exchanges like PancakeSwap — enabling non-custodial cryptocurrency swaps, and offering some yield generation features for users.

ShibaSwap is fueled by the Shiba Inu Coin ($SHIB), along with two secondary tokens, namely Bone ShibaSwap ($BONE) and Doge Killer ($LEASH), but more on these later.

How Does ShibaSwap Work

There are 6 main features displayed on the ShibaSwap homepage, with “SWAP” being the main function of the decentralized exchange, that “tells your Shiba Inu to fetch new tokens” in exchange for other tokens.

ShibaSwap was created as a hard fork of the SushiSwap DEX, meaning that it’s essentially a copy of the initial blockchain protocol. Despite being a fork of SushiSwap, ShibaSwap has a different fee and incentive structure. This isn’t unusual in the blockchain space, as SushiSwap was also created as a hard fork of Uniswap.

ShibaSwap uses an automated market maker (AMM) to quickly execute asset swaps without the need for an order book or central intermediary. When a user submits an asset swap order, the protocol taps one of its native liquidity pools for the requested asset pair and executes the token swap.

Tokens on ShibaSwap

There are a total of 3 tokens on ShibaSwap, with each of them fulfilling different roles in the ecosystem.

SHIB

SHIB is the main token of the Shiba Inu ecosystem and one of the most popular meme coins in the crypto space. In technical terms, it is an Ethereum-native ERC-20 token.

SHIB has a total supply of 999,9 trillion coins, with a circulating supply of 589 trillion tokens, according to data from CoinStats. Its massive token supply is the reason why token prices are so low, despite having a market cap of nearly $7 billion.

Interestingly, SHIB launched In August 2020, with an initial supply of 1 quadrillion tokens, 50% of which was sent to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s cold wallet by Shiba Inu’s pseudonymous co-founder, Ryoshi, for reasons that are still unclear. Buterin burned (removed from circulation) 80% of the received SHIB tokens, worth $6.7 billion at the time, and donated the remaining 20% to different charity organizations.

SHIB is currently the 12th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trading at $0.00001170, with a market capitalization of $6.9 billion, according to data from CoinStats.

BONE

BONE is an Ethereum-native ERC-20 token and a fundamental part of ShibaSwap, as it also works as the protocol’s governance token.

BONE is used to reward stickers and liquidity providers on ShibaSwap. Moreover, BONE can also be staked to earn more BONE tokens.

BONE launched on July 7, 2021, having a total supply of 230 million tokens, with a current circulating supply of 74,2 million coins, according to data from CoinStats. A small portion of newly minted BONE is allocated to a developer wallet to fund the future development of ShibaSwap.

BONE is currently the 267th largest token by market cap, trading at $1.39, with a market capitalization of $103 million, according to data from CoinStats.

LEASH

Similar to BONE, LEASH is another Ethereum-native ERC-20 token.

LEASH launched in April 2021, as a token built to “tame Doge”, hence the name LEASH. The cryptocurrency aimed to do this by being pegged in a 1 to 1000 ratio to DOGE prices. This was achieved by rebasing prices to 1000-times the price of DOGE at 6:30 UTC, on a daily basis.

Yet, LEASH has since abandoned its price rebasing mechanism and is priced according to regular supply and demand mechanisms. Instead, LEASH can now be staked to earn more BONE tokens, but has no other use cases as of yet.

LEASH has a total supply of 107,000 tokens and a circulating supply of 105,000 coins. At press time, LEASH is the 449th largest cryptocurrency, trading at $458, with a market capitalization of $48.5 million.

Yield Generation on ShibaSwap

There are 2 main passive yield generation products on ShibaSwap, namely liquidity providing and staking. ShibaSwap’s BURN portal can also be used as a tool to generate income, despite not being a regular yield generation tool. We’ll take a look at all three below.

DIG - Liquidity Providing on ShibaSwap

ShibaSwap’s liquidity-providing feature is called “DIG” since your Shiba Inu coins will dig up more BONE tokens as rewards.

Liquidity providers on ShibaSwap earn returns proportional to the trading fees generated in their respective liquidity pools.

Users can add liquidity to existing liquidity pools or create their own asset pair. Liquidity providers need to provide both cryptocurrencies of the trading pair in a 1:1 ratio. Meaning that if you want to provide liquidity for the ETH - AAVE liquidity pool, you’ll need to lock in the same amount of both ETH and AAVe in the liquidity pool.

Liquidity providers can claim 33% of their rewards on a weekly basis, while the remaining 67% will be time-locked for 6 months.

BURY - Staking on ShibaSwap

ShibaSwap’s staking feature is known as “BURY”, alluding to how Shiba Inu pups bury (stake) their tokens to gain BONE tokens as rewards later.

Users can stake all three of the ecosystems tokens alike, SHIB, LEASH, and BONE as well. The annual percentage yield (APY) differs for each token, depending on the amount staked and the period. Meaning, that the longer a user’s tokens remain staked in the pool, the higher the returns.

At press time, ShibaSwap’s APY calculator was not working for any of the tokens. Yet, the SHIB APY was 0.09% for the last 24 hours, with 2.50% LEASH APY, and 0.45% BONE APY, according to ShibaSwap Analytics.

Stakers receive the equivalent of their staked, namely xSHIB, xLEASH, or tBONE, representing their share of the staking pool. Much like with DIG, staking rewards are distributed weekly. Stakers can claim 33% of their “Woof Returns” on a weekly basis, while the remaining 67% are locked for 6 months.

ShibaSwap BURN Portal

While this is not your standard yield generation tool, technically ShibaSwap’s BURN portal can also yield passive income for SHIB token holders.

The BURN portal enables users to burn SHIB, effectively reducing the token’s circulating supply, in exchange for generating passive income. Burned tokens are sent to a burn address, which permanently removes them from circulation, increasing the scarcity of the digital asset.

Users who burn SHIB tokens gain $burntSHIB in return. This makes them eligible for “RYOSHI rewards” which award them 0.49% of all RYOSHI transactions.

The token burn is governed by the Shiba Burn smart contract, which can be verified here, via Etherscan.

The Team and Funding Behind ShibaSwap

Much like the Shiba Inu Coin, ShibaSwap has an interesting history behind it.

Shiba Inu’s white paper, or so-called “WOOF paper” was released in April 2020, three months before the SHIB token launched in August. ShibaSwap was launched on July 6, 2021, aiming to make SHIB more than a meme coin, by creating more use cases around the token.

Similar to the first-ever blockchain network, Bitcoin, Shiba Inu was launched by pseudonymous founder Ryoshi, whose identity is still unknown. According to the first-ever Shiba Inu blog post (which was since deleted and re-posted by others), Shiba Inu launched as a pioneering experiment in decentralization.

Shiba Inu and ShibaSwap were primarily developed by Ryoshi and the Shiba Inu community. To date, there are no venture capital firms or funding rounds behind the project.

Doggy DAO & Governance on ShibaSwap

The ShibaSwap ecosystem is governed by the Doggy DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that oversees the ecosystem development proposals around Shiba Inu.

The Doggy DAO was launched on December 31, 2022, to establish community governance and uphold the ecosystem’s decentralization. Community members who stake their BONE tokens receive tBONE in return, which makes them eligible to vote on governance proposals. A user’s voting power is correlated to the number of tBONE tokens held, with 1 tBONe being equal to 1 vote.

ShiboShis - NFTs on ShibaSwap

The Shiba Inu community has its own non-fungible token (NFT) collection known as SHIBOSHIS. SHIBOSHIS is a collection of 10,000 unique Shiba Inu-generated NFTs native to the Ethereum network.

The NFT collection launched on October 14, 2021, with each NFY depicting an animated Shiba Inu puppy with unique traits, that will double as in-game characteristics in the upcoming Shiboshi game. The NFTs can be bought without fees on ShibaSwap, and have a current floor price of 0.65 ETH, worth around $930 at current price levels.

Another interesting feature of the collection is how holders were given the chance to name their NFTs, for an additional $100 worth of SHIB.  On the bright side, the additional fee is burned in the ShibaSwap Burn Portal, with an additional burn worth $1 million, when all SHIBOSHIS NFTs are named.

The NFTs offer holders exclusive perks, and double as a digital membership for the Shiboshis Social Club, 

The most expensive SHIBOSHIS NFT, CERBERUS, is currently listed for 10,888 ETH, worth $15,6 million, at press time.

How to Use ShibaSwap

Swapping cryptocurrencies on ShibaSwap is fairly easy. Here’s how it works.

1. Visit the ShibaSwap homepage and click on the “Swap Tokens” button.

2. This will open up the DEX’s cryptocurrency swapping page. Currently, there is a single window on the page, entitled “SWAP”.

3. Connect the crypto wallet that you want to use for asset swaps, by clicking “Connect Wallet” at the bottom of the swap window. ShibaSwap currently supports MetaMask, WalletConnect, and Coinbase Wallet.

4. Once your wallet is connected you can start swapping tokens. Make sure to have some ETH in your wallet to cover gas fees (transaction fees).

5. Select the token you’d like to exchange, by clicking on the “Swap from” tab. Then select the cryptocurrency you’d like to receive, by clicking on the “Swap to” tab.

6. Once you’ve reviewed your input, click on submit and sign the transaction in your crypto wallet. After the asset swap is executed, the new assets will show up in your crypto wallet.

Benefits of ShibaSwap

One of the main benefits of ShibaSwap is the rapid traction it gained from the Shiba Inu community and meme coin enthusiasts. No wonder how ShibaSwap surpassed $1 billion in TVL merely 24 hours after its launch, temporarily propelling it into the top 30 DeFi protocols by total value locked (TVL), according to data from DeFillama.

Shiba Inu started as a pioneering experiment in decentralization with a truly fair token distribution, as there were no tokens awarded to investors, founders, or developers. SHIB is arguably the top meme coin with one of the strongest crypto communities behind it. The fact that SHIB has such significant retail backing means that ShibaSwap will also remain a popular decentralized exchange.

Speaking of decentralization, ShibaSwap is a fully non-custodial DEX, where no entities are ever in control or ownership of your funds. Meaning that there is no risk of censorship or asset freezing.

Another benefit of the decentralized exchange is its safety, as it was awarded a 93/100 Skynet Trust Score by blockchain security firm CertiK. This puts it in the top 10% of all Skynet projects audited by CertiK, making it more secure than popular DeFi protocols like Polygon or Aave.

Criticisms of ShibaSwap

While ShibaSwap gained significant traction within the first days of its launch, the economic incentives behind its success are morally questionable. This is because ShibaSwap launched with a 2-week “liquidity enhancement period” that incentivized liquidity providers to move their LP tokens from UniSwap and SushiSwap to ShibaSwap, to benefit from the accelerated BONE token emissions. In the crypto space, this is commonly referred to as a “vampire attack”.

Another off-putting aspect of ShibaSwap is its static homepage, which is a 1-page, seemingly low-effort website. At the time of this writing, the “FAQ” and “Doggy DAO” sections of the website were completely unresponsive, along with many other notable features, like the staking APY.

While this is not directly related to ShibaSwap, the ecosystem’s tokens have no utility or real-life use cases besides holders being able to trade and stake them. The ecosystem’s lack of coherent technical documentation could also be interpreted as a lack of transparency and future direction, discouraging investor participation.

Bottom Line

ShibaSwap has a current TVL of $30.6 million. While it is nowhere near the top 10 decentralized exchanges, the “Shib Army”, is one of the strongest communities in the crypto space, which will assure the long-term interest in the entire Shiba Inu ecosystem.

The Shiba Inu community is also working on the development of a metaverse, known as Shib: The Metaverse, and the Shiboshis Game, which was since rebranded to Shiba Eternity. The game will comprise two separate games, one for mobile phones, and one based on the SHIBOSHIS NFT collection. These initiatives will center around the Shiba Inu tokens, which will result in more demand for the cryptocurrencies and more usage for the ShibaSwap DEX.

The Shiba Inu ecosystem, together with ShibaSwap, started as a pioneering experiment in decentralization. Wherever the project goes in the future, it will be interesting to witness what the sheer force of a decentralized web3 community can achieve.