The crypto world has been abuzz with shiba inu for some time now, as the meme token hit record prices on Friday. The meme token modeled after DOGE rose to $0.000088841 and obtained a Market Capitalization of $44.49 billion before retreating.
According to a Business Insider report seen by Investogist, quoting a list of the cryptocurrency’s top 10 holders, about 10% of the tokens were purchased by cryptocurrency platforms such as Crypto.com and Binance. In total, there are 836,588 holders of the token.
Of this 836,588 holders, 10 of them own 71% of the meme token’s total supply. One address owns a whopping 41.03%. This means that based on the coin’s price on Thursday, the owner’s holdings are worth $27.1 billion.
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Shiba inu is an ethereum-based alternative to dogecoin. It was founded in August 2020 by someone going by the name Ryoshi, whose goal was to move away from “rigid social structures and traditional mindsets,” according to the coin’s 28-page white paper, dubbed a “woof paper.”
It has a total market valuation of nearly $37 billion and has become the 10th largest cryptoasset.
But what many may not realize is about 41% of the token’s total supply is burned – meaning those coins are not in circulation anymore, data by Etherscan showed. Though the address can look like a single person or entity owns that amount, it is in fact a “black hole”, where shiba inu coins are burned out of circulation.
The team behind shiba inu has locked 50% of the total token supply on Uniswap, according to its website.
The remaining 50% was gifted to ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, who donated the majority of it – about $1 billion at that time – to a crypto-based COVID-19 relief fund for India. He then “burned” the rest, permanently taking the supply out of circulation.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur