The majority of people think that meme coins are all the same, and at first glance, it would appear so. They may have different names and employ different cultural references to build their brand and stand out from the rest, but they follow more or less the same line. When you peek under their shiny façade, you realize there’s not much to look at. These unconventional cryptocurrencies use all sorts of bells and whistles to draw attention to themselves and, at the same time, distract from the fact that they don’t have anything to offer apart from sheer entertainment and the potential gains resulting from their speculative nature.
However, just because they have a common background doesn’t mean all meme coins remain the same. Even if their starting point is similar, their paths may differ, and some can evolve into something more than they were initially. That seems to be the case with Shiba Inu (SHIB), one of the most popular meme coins in the market, often touted as the main rival to Dogecoin, the creator of the meme coin class.
While most traders and investors kept their eyes peeled on the evolution of the Shiba Inu coin price, hoping to catch signs of a new surge, they may have lost sight of something much more interesting happening behind the scenes. Shiba Inu has been making real efforts to distance itself from its meme coin origins and rebrand as a powerful player in the crypto space.
Achieving meme coin stardom
Following Dogecoin’s success, the crypto market was flooded with all sorts of meme coins, one more peculiar than the other. As expected, most of them vanished as fast as they appeared, given their frail foundations, but there were a few that stuck around for longer than most and eventually became a permanent fixture in the crypto space. Shiba Inu was one of them.
Launched in 2020 by an anonymous creator under the pseudonym Ryoshi and built on the Ethereum blockchain, Siba Inu followed the typical trajectory for a meme coin: it chose a popular internet meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog, just like its more famous predecessor, which ensured instant recognition. Then it leveraged community support and social media virality to carve its way into the industry and establish itself as one of the most coveted assets in its class.
That was enough to set it on the path to success. SHIB experienced its biggest breakthrough in 2021, when Vitalik Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB to relief causes, putting the spotlight on the newly-emerged meme coin. Despite its frequent price fluctuations, most of them caused by the cyclicity of the crypto market, several other peaks followed in the years to come. Shiba Inu proved more resilient than expected for a meme coin, securing the 22nd position in the crypto hierarchy.
Move from hype to utility
Despite Shiba Inu’s rise to fame, it became clear at one point that people started to lose interest in the asset, as the buzz surrounding it began to fade. The problem with hype is that it can only last so long and take a crypto project so far, but it can’t ensure its long-term survival. If there’s nothing of value underpinning it, the crypto will eventually fall from grace, and its demise is inevitable.
Unfortunately, meme coins were not built to endure; they were intended to bring a bit of humor and amusement to the otherwise overwhelming and at times daunting crypto landscape, so establishing a clear mission and focusing on real-world utility wasn’t even a consideration in most cases. That’s why we’ve witnessed the rise and subsequent crash of so many meme coins over the course of time.
Maybe Shiba Inu would have had a similar fate if the community supporting it hadn’t focused on expanding its capabilities and introducing new features that are pushing the crypto further away from its meme coin beginnings. As a result, Shiba Inu is now standing at the intersection of meme coin culture and becoming a more serious cryptocurrency that can address real-world issues through its use cases. This progress is highlighted by the following developments:
Shibarium
In 2023, Shiba Inu introduced Shibarium, a Layer-2 scaling solution created on top of the Ethereum blockchain, taking advantage of its security and stability.
Its purpose is to increase the speed of transactions while lowering costs, and thus boost Shiba Inu’s performance. Shibarium also employs a burning mechanism, where a part of the gas fees paid by users to process transactions are used to remove SHIB tokens from circulation and thus maintain scarcity. By December 2024, Shibarium had processed over 600 million transactions, granting Shiba Inu real utility beyond speculation.
ShibaSwap
Shiba Inu also boasts its own decentralized exchange (DEX), ShibaSwap, which allows users to trade tokens directly with each other within the Shiba Inu ecosystem. In 2024, the platform migrated to Shibarium as ShibaSwap 2.0, adding yield farming, staking, liquidity provision, and trend discovery tools directly on the Layer‑2 network. These features increase functional demand for SHIB and grow its DeFi usability.
Doggy DAO
Additionally, Shiba Inu has been working on improving its governance system. ShibDAO was launched in May 2025, followed by plans for four specialized Doggy DAOs (Shib, Bone, Leash, Treat). Holders can stake tokens and vote on proposals, earning “karma points” that boost influence regardless of holding size.
Final Thoughts
Shiba Inu is currently focusing on transitioning from a purely speculative asset to a more functional cryptocurrency with its own ecosystem and potential use cases, such as governance through the Doggy DAO, the ShibaSwap DEX, and the Shibarium network. As for future ambitions, Shiba Inu aims to move towards Web3, challenging centralized giants like Google, and is focused on technological advancements and developmental milestones.
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