The identity of the Shiba Inu founder and creator is a question that has been debated among SHIB holders over the past year.
Since its formation in August 2020, Shiba Inu has garnered a significant amount of attention. Several of its projects, such as the Shibarium Layer-2 and the SHI stablecoin were first devised by its founder in the original Medium posts.
Table of Contents
So, just who is the creator of Shiba Inu?
Who Created Shiba Inu?
Shiba Inu's founder goes by the name Ryoshi, but very little else is known about the mystery cryptocurrency creator. Similar to the founder of Bitcoin - Satoshi Nakamoto - they remain anonymous.
SHIB was first created in August 2020 as a decentralised meme token. After its creation, Ryoshi gave 50% of all SHIB to the Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin. Buterin has since donated his collection of SHIB, alongside burning 410 trillion SHIB in the process.
Ryoshi also created LEASH - another cryptocurrency within the Shiba Inu ecosystem.
As explained on the official Shiba Inu website, LEASH "has the opposite appeal to SHIB" as only 100,000 LEASH is in existence, with a current price of $568
at the time of writing.
However, much of the ongoing work for the Shiba ecosystem comes from other individuals. These include Shytoshi Kusama, its volunteer project lead. Shytoshi, other developers and the various breeds within the core team are behind the announcements for many new SHIB projects, such as the Shiba Inu Metaverse and the Shiba Inu games.
Ryoshi's vision still remains central, though. Projects such as Shibarium, ShibaNet and the SHI stablecoin were all first devised by Ryoshi in his various blog posts.
Who is Ryoshi?
Ryoshi's identity remains unknown as of December 2021 and is likely to stay this way.
On 29 May, Ryoshi published a now-deleted blog post entitled 'I AM RYOSHI', in which the founder discussed their identity.
I have said from the beginning, I am a nobody, I am not important. The efforts to unmask my “identity” even if successful would be underwhelming. I am just some guy of no consequence tapping at a keyboard and I am replaceable. I am Ryoshi.
After a year of silence, Ryoshi has now deleted his Medium blog and his tweets. This left many SHIB holders wondering where he has gone.
Ryoshi emphasised that SHIB is a pure, decentralised token that belongs to its community.
"Usually when we see some “project” there is some CEO important guy and some tech guy and some roadmap," Ryoshi said, before explaining that these individuals are then deemed as accountable for the currency and its future by "plebs". With SHIB, Ryoshi states this is not the case.
The founder also stated that he is not a SHIB-millionaire, either.
"The reality is still to this day I own 0 SHIB," Ryoshi said. "I can’t be pure and unbiased if I am worried about price up and down and taking profits."
Of course, this hasn't stopped Redditors or others online from speculating over the identity of Ryoshi.
One particular theory that has been reproduced multiple times stems from an image of Vitalik Buterin walking a Shiba Inu dog, along with a group of friends. As this image was also placed at the bottom of a blog post, many Reddit threads suggest Ryoshi is among this group.
Another theory links both Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin to Shiba Inu, stemming from an invite from Buterin to Musk for DevCon. However, many in the community have since rejected this idea.
Where is Ryoshi now?
Since Ryoshi's departure, SHIB holders continue to wonder where Ryoshi has gone, and whether he will come back.
Nobody knows for sure what exactly happened to the SHIB founder, nor do they know where he is now.
However, a slightly different trend has spawned out of Ryoshi's departure from SHIB. Several tokens have claimed they are now backed by Ryoshi, going as far as creating new accounts claiming to be Ryoshi.
While most SHIB holders are sceptical of these claims, it is much like the claims about Musk and Buterin. How do you prove who this anonymous individual is, and how do you prove they aren't involved?
This all remains speculation and, for now, the identity of Ryoshi is still unknown.
Explore new topics and discover content that's right for you!
Planet Crypto