Let’s look back at some of the dog coins that struck gold.
SHIB: Six Years in Review—How Did It Start, and How Did It Become So Popular?
Here are a few key milestones 👇
① August 2020 | An anonymous beginning
The anonymous founder Ryoshi launched SHIB on Ethereum as a “spontaneous community-building experiment,” with the slogan “Dogecoin Killer.”
According to his early account, half of the supply was allocated to Uniswap liquidity, while much of the rest was sent to Vitalik. This “token transfer” does not mean Vitalik was involved in the launch or endorsed it.
② Early 2021 | Riding the renewed DOGE hype
SHIB had its moments in the spotlight, and its quiet spells, too.
As DOGE drew attention again, the “find the next Dogecoin” sentiment created an opportunity for SHIB, while the ShibArmy community continued to spread the word.
③ May 2021 | Major exchanges join in
On May 8, OKEx announced that it would list SHIB.
On May 10, Binance opened SHIB trading.
Lower barriers to buying brought SHIB from a small circle of on-chain users to a much larger retail market.
④ May 2021 | The Vitalik event put SHIB on the map
Vitalik donated around 50 trillion SHIB to support COVID-19 relief in India.
He then burned around 410 trillion SHIB, about 41% of the original supply.
Charity, a massive token burn, and Ethereum’s founder: these elements brought SHIB global attention.
⑤ July–September 2021 | Ecosystem and trading access expand
On July 6, ShibaSwap launched.
On September 9, Coinbase Pro announced that trading would open; on September 16, trading became available on Coinbase’s main platform and app.
SHIB’s story grew from “Dogecoin” into trading, staking, and an ecosystem.
⑥ October 2021 | The fortune-making legend reaches its peak
SHIB surged to an all-time high of around $0.000088 near the end of the month.
An early wallet made headlines: an investment of around $8,000 at one point represented a paper holding worth about $5.7 billion.
This is SHIB’s most famous wealth story. But a paper valuation is not the same as having cashed out, and splitting tokens across wallets later does not mean they were all sold.
⑦ 2021–2023 | From the hype to long-term development
November 2021: Listed on Kraken.
April 2022: Listed on Robinhood.
In August 2023, the project announced the launch of the Shibarium mainnet, continuing to expand its ecosystem.
⑧ 2024 | Another early buyer cashes out
According to Lookonchain’s tracking, an investor spent 2 ETH, worth around $2,625, to buy SHIB in 2021.
In 2024, he sold for around 278.7 ETH, worth about $1.1 million at the time.
Even without selling at the peak, he still made a huge profit.
Looking back over these six years, I think what makes SHIB special is how it connected culture, community, trading access, and stories of people making fortunes.
It left behind real wealth legends, as well as a distinction worth remembering:
Buying early, holding for a long time, having huge unrealized gains, and eventually cashing out are four different things.
Sources: Ryoshi’s original post | Binance listing announcement | whale tracking | cash-out case SHIB at Six: From a Shiba Inu to a Billion-Dollar Fortune-Making Legend
In 2020, an anonymous founder called Ryoshi launched SHIB on Ethereum.
It borrowed the Shiba Inu image and adopted the slogan “Dogecoin killer,” to see whether a project could grow on its own through its community.
SHIB wasn’t popular from the start. After a brief spell in the spotlight, it was also forgotten by the market. It wasn’t until Dogecoin surged in 2021 and more people started looking for “the next DOGE” that SHIB regained attention.
Major exchanges gradually opened the door to trading:
**May 2021:** Listed on OKEx and Binance.
**September 2021:** Trading opened on Coinbase Pro and then on Coinbase’s main platform.
**November 2021:** Listed on Kraken.
**April 2022:** Listed on Robinhood.
There was another pivotal event: a large amount of SHIB gifted to Vitalik early in the project was used for charitable donations and burned. In May 2021, he burned around 410 trillion SHIB, about 41% of the original supply.
This brought SHIB global attention, but receiving tokens does not mean Vitalik endorsed it.
What really made people remember SHIB were the stories of people making fortunes.
In 2021, an early wallet made headlines: an investment of around $8,000 had at one point turned into a paper holding worth about $5.7 billion.
Later, Bubblemaps’ tracking found that the tokens had been split across multiple related addresses. Its analysis suggested that this cluster of addresses still held most of the early tokens. But that doesn’t prove “not a single token was sold in six years,” much less that $5.7 billion had been cashed out.
Another story is more specific: according to Lookonchain’s tracking, an investor bought SHIB in 2021 with 2 ETH, worth around $2,625, then sold in 2024 for around 278.7 ETH, worth about $1.1 million at the time.
He didn’t sell at the peak, but still made a huge profit.
Looking back six years later, SHIB has shown that a meme can build a huge community and has genuinely changed the fortunes of a few people.
But it also reminds us:
Buying early, holding on, seeing huge paper gains, and actually cashing out are four different things.
The legend is worth recording—and so is the survivorship bias behind it.
Sources: exchange listing announcements, whale tracking, and reports on early investors cashing out.