Shiba Inu is a popular meme-inspired cryptocurrency that has seen tremendous growth and adoption since its creation in 2020. As an Ethereum-based token, Shiba Inu relies on proof-of-work mining to validate transactions and mint new coins. This has led many investors and crypto enthusiasts to wonder – how many Shiba Inu coins are left to be mined?
The Total Supply of Shiba Inu
When Shiba Inu was first launched, the creators set a total supply of 1 quadrillion tokens. That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000 SHIB tokens in circulation. Of this amount, 50% (500 trillion tokens) was gifted to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, while the other 50% was made available to the public for mining and purchase.
However, in May 2021, Buterin donated over 40 trillion SHIB to a COVID-19 relief fund in India, and burned the remaining coins sent to him, removing them permanently from circulation. This drastically reduced the circulating supply to approximately 395 trillion tokens.
As of November 2022, approximately 549,060,620,000,000 SHIB are in circulation, leaving around 450,939,380,000,000 still left to be mined and issued.
Shiba Inu’s Mining Rate and Schedule
Unlike Bitcoin, which has a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins, Shiba Inu does not have a hard cap or limit on the total number of tokens that can be minted. Instead, new SHIB coins are constantly being mined and introduced into circulation.
According to the token’s woofpaper, SHIB has a mining rate of 1,000,000 tokens per block. On average, a new block is mined every minute on the Ethereum blockchain. This means approximately 1.5 billion new SHIB tokens are mined daily, or around 550 billion per year at the current rate.
At this pace, it would take over 800 years to mine the remaining 450 trillion SHIB still left in circulation. However, the rate is likely to slow down over time as the mining difficulty increases.
Key Factors Influencing Shiba Inu’s Remaining Supply
There are several key factors that will influence how quickly the remaining Shiba Inu supply is mined:
- Mining difficulty – As more miners compete for rewards, the mining difficulty will increase, slowing block production and issuance of new coins.
- Transaction fees – High Ethereum gas fees may deter miners and reduce block production.
- Adoption and demand – If adoption increases, more miners may enter to capitalize on rewards.
- Regulations – Legal clampdowns could impact accessibility for miners, affecting new supply.
- Developer decisions – Developers may decide to alter mining algorithms, reward structures, or implement burns.
Why Does Shiba Inu Have Such a High Supply?
The developers of Shiba Inu intentionally launched the token with a massive 1 quadrillion supply for a few key reasons:
- Lower price per token – A huge supply allows investors to purchase large number of tokens for a small amount early on.
- Daily accessibility – With billions of new tokens mined daily, SHIB remains easy and affordable for new investors to acquire.
- Reward structure for miners – The perpetual mining of new coins incentivizes miners to secure the network by rewarding them with fresh token supply.
- Reduced volatility – The high supply helps prevent drastic price swings in the early stages of the token’s life cycle.
- Differentiation – The supply structure differentiates SHIB from other capped meme coins like Dogecoin.
Major Burns of the Shiba Inu Supply
While new Shiba Inu coins are constantly being mined, the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply has also decreased significantly through major coin burns.
Vitalik Buterin’s Burn
In May 2021, Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin burned over 40 trillion SHIB tokens that had been gifted to him by incinerating them to a dead wallet address. This removed a substantial portion from circulation.
Triple Burn Portal
In October 2021, developers introduced the SHIB “Triple Burn Portal” allowing investors to voluntarily burn SHIB as well as redirect Amazon Smile rewards to a burn wallet. As of November 2022, over 410 billion SHIB has been burned through the portal.
Play-To-Earn Games
Shiba Inu’s play-to-earn Shiba Eternity game also implements token burns by destroying 2% of all SHIB spent on in-game purchases. The developers have stated the game could burn billions of SHIB daily through gameplay.
Merchandise Royalties
The project also burns a portion of royalties from official Shiba Inu merchandise sales. In July 2022, they reported a burn of over 35 billion tokens from merch royalties.
While the amounts burned are relatively small compared to the remaining supply, these efforts are decreasing total circulation over time.
The Possibility of Future Burns
In addition to the ongoing burns through games, merchandise, and community participation, larger-scale burns may take place in the future through other methods like:
- Manual or automatic burns by the development team
- Exchange tokens being burned if holders do not migrate during upgrades
- Continued burns of developer token allocations
- Burns funded through community donations
However, the likelihood and frequency of any massive future burns is unclear. The development team has not indicated plans for additional large-scale burns at this time.
The Impact of Burns on Shiba Inu’s Valuation
When tokens are permanently destroyed, it reduces the circulating supply across exchanges and markets. With less tokens available, the logic is that the value of each remaining token should increase or hold more value.
However, crypto valuation relies heavily on market sentiment and demand. While supply shrinks due to burns, the price of the token may not correlate positively unless accompanied by increased adoption and trading activity.
The billions of SHIB tokens burned to date are relatively small compared to the remaining supply. Nevertheless, continued burns could gradually contribute to uplifting long-term value if coupled with growing utility for the token and investor interest.
Shiba Inu’s Future as an Inflationary Coin
With no supply cap, Shiba Inu’s perpetual minting classifies it as an inflationary cryptocurrency – one that tends to increase in circulating supply over time.
Supporters argue this keeps the token accessible and ideal for small, daily transactions. Critics counter that uncontrolled inflation will continually suppress the token’s value.
Much depends on whether future adoption and demand outpaces the rate of new SHIB being mined. If adoption accelerates and more coins become locked into staking pools and DeFi protocols, this could offset sell pressure from inflation.
Additionally, strategic burns coordinated by the development team could help counteract runaway inflation by destroying supply at key points. The next few years will determine whether these factors allow SHIB to overcome its inflationary design.
The Role of Shiba Inu’s DAO Community
Decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, could play a key role in shaping Shiba Inu’s future inflation levels. DAOs allow communities to collectively govern tokens via voting on proposals.
Shiba Inu has its own DoggyDAO that lets owners stake their tokens in return for voting rights and rewards. In theory, the DoggyDAO could vote on implementing additional burn mechanisms, altering the block reward structure for miners, or other measures to reduce inflation.
Therefore, as the Shiba Inu community matures, the DoggyDAO may increasingly influence the token’s circulating supply and inflation trajectory.
Forecasting the Total Mined Supply in the Future
Given the continual introduction of new tokens through mining, it’s difficult to forecast Shiba Inu’s total and circulating supply years into the future.
Much depends on the interplay between new mining, token burns, the rate of adoption, and any supply-impacting proposals passed by the DoggyDAO.
However, here are some rough potential scenarios for Shiba Inu’s supply outlook:
- Conservative: 600 trillion tokens by 2030, 700 trillion by 2040
- Moderate: 800 trillion by 2030, 1 quadrillion by 2040
- Optimistic: 500 trillion by 2030, 750 trillion by 2040
Long-term forecasts also depend heavily on whether Shiba Inu remains resistant to competition from rival dog-themed meme coins over the coming decade.
Conclusion
Shiba Inu still has a massive number of tokens left to be mined, with around 450 trillion remaining out of the original 1 quadrillion supply. At current mining rates, it would take over 800 years to fully deplete the remaining coins.
While new SHIB enters circulation every minute through block rewards, token burns and adoption could counterbalance inflation and uplift value over time. The outcomes for long-term supply and valuation remain uncertain.
Much depends on the ability of mechanisms like the Triple Burn Portal, DoggyDAO governance, and new utility features to offset the dilutive pressure of perpetual mining. As Shiba Inu evolves, the community and developers have some flexibility to steer the token’s circulating supply and inflationary design.
