SHIB, BONE, LEASH. These are the three tokens making up the Shiba ecosystem, alongside the Shiboshi NFTs. However, buried deep in the Shiba Inu Woofpaper, is a reference to a fourth token called TREAT.
Fast forward to now, and with WoofPaper v3 in the works, there appears little done with this fourth token. Instead, the focus remains on expanding the ecosystem with the likes of the Shiba Metaverse and Shiba Inu games.
So, what happened to the planned TREAT token?
Treat Token - The Fourth Shiba Token
In the Shiba Inu WoofPaper, a section called the Ruffmap lays out several projects on the Shiba Roadmap. One inclusions here is a brand new token called TREAT.
As per the WoofPaper, here’s what the Shiba team said about TREAT:
Though our official roadmap remains tightly guarded, we are happy to reveal our next token will be a Shiba Treat.
TREAT is another very special token, but the detailed Tokenomics will be revealed after the release of ShibaSwap with an update to this document.
Given its name, we suspect TREAT was intended to offer some reward to Shiba ecosystem users. This could possibly relate to burying or staking SHIB and other tokens, although nothing was ever confirmed.
Despite remaining on the WoofPaper over half a year after the launch of ShibaSwap, it appears the TREAT token is no longer a priority.
Shiba project lead Shytoshi Kusama made several comments in the official Shiba Discord that clarify TREAT will likely never launch. On September 24, Shytoshi appeared to confirm TREAT was all but dead. He said:
TREATS are not real. Don’t think this token will be made. We are focusing on the Trifecta [SHIB, BONE, LEASH].
In a longer post on October 5, Shytoshi also said:
Treat has been dropped from the backlog for now.
Shiba developer Eric M also made several statements on Discord throughout 2021 confirming no work had been done on TREAT. “We don’t need more tokens at this moment,” he said in August. “[It] won’t be responsible to add a new one.”
Of course, the door isn’t fully closed, but it seems TREAT is no longer in development for the Shiba ecosystem. Instead, priority is being given to the main three tokens already in circulation. Given the projects in development, perhaps this is the best outcome for a team that already has a hefty workload.