If you're wondering who owns the most Shiba Inu (SHIB), it's not that simple.
Cryptocurrency whales are an important part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Along with Elon Musk's Dogecoin holdings and the question of if Elon Musk owns any SHIB, holders want to know who are the top Shiba Inu whales in question.
Here's an overview of the top SHIB holders, and a look deeper into the ecosystem.
SHIB Whales: Who holds the most Shiba Inu?
The largest holder of Shiba Inu is a dead wallet containing the contents of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's Shiba Inu burn. This wallet holds 410,326,013,787,703 - or 41% of the supply, and has been topped up by further SHIB burns.
When SHIB first launched, it gave 50% of its total circulation to Buterin as part of its marketing. However, in May 2021, Buterin burned 410,241,996,771,871 SHIB by sending it to a dead address, effectively removing 41% of the entire SHIB circulation. This was worth over $7.3bn on the day of the transaction. In a note, Buterin said:
I've decided to burn 90% of the remaining Shiba tokens in my wallet. The remaining 10% will be sent to a (not yet decided) charity with similar values to crypto relief (preventing the large-scale loss of life) but with more long-term orientation.
Buterin also said that holding onto the SHIB in his public wallet was "never an option".
Alongside this, while the top 100 SHIB holders look to have concentrated Shiba ownership, this isn't entirely the whole truth. Binance holds the third-largest SHIB wallet, for example.
However, the SHIB burned by Buterin is deemed no longer in circulation. The second-largest SHIB address belongs to an anonymous investor who holds 48 trillion SHIB - some 8% of circulation. This is currently worth $576 million.
SHIB followers on Reddit have speculated about the identity of this wallet as part of their whale-watching efforts. Some suggest that as the address acquired a significant amount of SHIB near its formation, it could be one of the Shiba Inu founders.
However, SHIB's founder, Ryoshi, may disagree.
How much Shiba Inu does Ryoshi hold?
Shiba Inu's founder has maintained that they do not own as much SHIB as people would think.
In a now-deleted blog post, Ryoshi stated:
Even as the Shiba Token “mooned” I got many messages like “ryo, you must be a billionaire now, haha” but the reality is still to this day I own 0 SHIB. Why? Well if I did, then I can’t be who I am and for now I know that I have a role to play. I can’t be pure and unbiased if I am worried about price up and down and taking profits. (don’t worry, the great Shiba will reward me in other ways i guess)
Ryoshi's identity remains unknown, and he has since deleted all of his SHIB posts. This statement means that unlike bitcoin's founder Satoshi Nakamoto, who owns over 1,000,000 BTC, Ryoshi is not among the SHIB whales.
- Read More: Shiba Inu Game: Everything You Need To Know
Shiboshi and Shiba Inu Metaverse Whales
Of course, the Shiba Inu ecosystem is no longer just about SHIB. From NFTs to new tokens, there's a lot of whales to track.
With the Shiboshi NFTs, the largest whale holds 121 Shiboshi NFTs - just over 1% of the 10,000 NFT collection. Meanwhile, excluding the top address (which is just the Shiboshi contract), the top 100 holders own 20% of the entire collection.
As for the Shiba Inu Metaverse, it's slightly different. The Shiba Inu Metaverse land sale is still ongoing and has yet to sell out. Of the 19,760 plots sold, the top 100 own around 30% of the plots. Meanwhile, the top metaverse whale, excluding the Null Address, owns 212 pieces of land - around 1% of the supply.