Shiba Inu (SHIB) coin is a leading contender for the memecoin throne, with its supporters often referring to it as the “Dogecoin killer.”

As the token continues to grow, more and more people are interested in the project’s tokenomics and want to know how many Shiba Inu tokens are in circulation.

Learn about Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB)

 

Shiba Inu was created by an anonymous developer in August 2020. Unlike tokens on private networks, (SHIB) is an ER-C20 token that exists on the Ethereum blockchain. As such, it has access to DeFi and related services, which gives it an advantage over similar meme tokens with less utility.

This utility, coupled with an unusually high token supply (which we’ll discuss in the next section), has proven to be a notable factor in helping Shiba Inu stand out.

The ecosystem now includes projects such as ShibaSwap (a decentralized exchange), NFTs, and the play-and-earn game Shiba Eternity.

With the help of a dedicated community, the currency has surged in popularity and is now one of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Shiba Inu Coin Total Supply

 

When launched in 2020, the Shiba Inu token supply will be 1 quadrillion SHIB tokens, or 1,000 trillion tokens. At the time of SHIB’s launch, its token supply was the largest in the world. Unsurprisingly, the large amount of Shiba Inu tokens in circulation made headlines and helped the project gain global attention.

It is important to note that a large supply does not necessarily affect the value or use case of a project, and many in the space consider the supply to be a gimmick. To new cryptocurrency users who are not familiar with token economics, SHIB tokens may appear to be “cheaper” and therefore more affordable than other crypto tokens.

Of course, the price of an individual crypto token should not be confused with the value of the actual crypto project itself! We’ll dive into how to understand the supply of cryptocurrencies in more detail later, but first, let’s see how many Shiba Inu coins are available today.

Number of Shiba Inus in circulation

 

The supply of the SHIB cryptocurrency has not been maintained and currently stands at 589 trillion SHIB. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sent 410 trillion tokens to a dead wallet in 2021, effectively destroying or "burning" them, and said he would donate the remaining tokens to charity.

The SHIB community as a whole also burns a large portion of the initial supply to make SHIB deflationary, meaning it becomes increasingly scarce over time. In true crypto fashion, the community democratically decides when to make these burns, with those with the most SHIB tokens having the most voting power.

While the development team may be the major shareholder, their identities are unknown, and it is unclear who the primary constituency of the community is.

The move is intended to reduce the total amount of Shiba Inu coins, in an effort to make the token more scarce and, ideally, more valuable. Again, this comes down to the percentage of supply each investor owns. If an investor owns 10 tokens in a project with a supply of 100 tokens, they own 10% of the total supply.

If the community destroys 50 tokens and leaves only 50 in the total supply, the same investor now owns 20% of the total supply instead of 10%, which could mean an increase in value for that investor.

Of the remaining 589 trillion token supply, a portion remains in locked or burned wallets, further increasing the scarcity of the token supply.

Why supply matters to investors

 

The value of a cryptocurrency is equal to the amount of currency multiplied by the price of the currency.

Market capitalization = price x supply.

The same is true for ordinary companies and their stocks.

For example, Apple stock is worth $170 per share, while Berkshire Hathaway stock is worth $685,000 per share.

So is Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway worth more than Apple?

No.

Apple's market value is three and a half times that of Berkshire Hathaway, with the former having a market value of $3.45 trillion and the latter having a market value of $984 billion.

This is because Apple has more shares than Berkshire Hathaway. The number of shares doesn't actually affect the price or value of a company at all, it's just a fairly arbitrary way of allocating shares for sale.

Similarly, when someone buys SHIB tokens, they are purchasing a percentage of the total supply.

Therefore, a project’s token price may be lower than SHIB, but its value will be higher due to the higher market cap.

Investors don’t care how many shares or cryptocurrency units they own, but rather what value those units represent.

Simply put, investors need to look at the token price and total supply to calculate market capitalization. The market capitalization is the actual value of the project, not the token price.

The future of Shiba Inu supply

 

The future of SHIB supply will have a significant impact on project prices.

While burns are not usually announced in advance, they occur regularly and can be tracked online through tools such as the Shibburn account on x.com

It is not clear how many SHIB tokens will be destroyed in the future, and the project team may use the destruction mechanism to respond to price headwinds at their discretion. Other price factors to monitor include community initiatives and staking activity as well as any strategic partnerships Shiba Inu obtains.

Comparing Shiba Inu's supply to other cryptocurrencies

 

As we now know, the supply of Shiba Inus is unusually high.

We also know that supply alone does not determine the value of a cryptocurrency, but needs to be considered along with coin price and market cap.

Shiba Inu Coin vs. Dogecoin (DOGE): The circulation of Dogecoin is about 141 billion DOGE. Unlike SHIB, which has an active destruction mechanism, the supply of Dogecoin is unlimited and will be inflated every year.

Shiba Inu and Bitcoin (BTC): Bitcoin has a capped supply of 21 million BTC, with over 19 million BTC currently in circulation. Bitcoin also has a halving mechanism, where the number of Bitcoins minted each year is cut in half every four years, making Bitcoin an increasingly scarce and deflationary asset. Unlike SHIB, Bitcoin halving is programmed and predetermined.

Bitcoin will halve its supply every four years and stop minting new coins entirely in 2140. The certainty of this deflationary mechanism is one of the aspects that makes the Bitcoin project so valuable.