As we welcome the New Year, we’re closing a chapter in our journey and are standing on the precipice of inviting a new era for growth and innovation. But before that, let’s take a moment to reflect on the highlights of Shib in 2023. Let’s look back and see how far we’ve come and appreciate the tremendous strides we have made together as the Shib Army.
Shib’s Involvement in Major-League Events and Conferences
SXSW 2023: On March 10, Shib: The Metaverse’s WAGMI Temple Hub debuted at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival, giving the attendees a sneak peek at the Metaverse hub. The following day, Shytoshi Kusama shared a photo of the poster that was entered into the movie poster competition of the festival.
Over the next three days, a Shib booth (Booth 701) was displayed at the SXSW venue in Austin, Texas, and it was among the most-anticipated parts of the event. True enough, it became a sensation, especially with the Shibarium beta version freshly released just a week prior. The Shib booth became a “popular spot” during the festival, according to a post shared by TheCryptoNews.
Outer Edge: Shib was also a part of the Next-Gen Storytelling event at Outer Edge LA on March 20, which highlighted the convergence of Web3, storytelling, metaverse, and the creative process behind it. Among the panel members was Marcie Jastrow, who talked about building metaverses, the importance of P2P in Web3, and the community’s role in the realization of the vision for Shib: The Metaverse.
NAB Show: Every year, the NAB Show brings together professionals from the entertainment industry, content creators, and technology innovators. In 2023, part of the program was the presentation of Shib’s crucial function in the digital revolution through VR, XR, and other technological advancements.
Consensus 2023: Not to fall behind on prestigious conferences making way for Shiba Inu, the Consensus 2023 experience was a blast. Marcie represented the Shib community at the conference, which took place from April 26 to 28, driving even more interest from the entertainment industry and presenting more opportunities for Shib.
ETHToronto: ETHToronto is inarguably a major event that helped to further Shib’s impact on the blockchain world. Shiba Inu was the official title sponsor for the ETHWomen conference in ETHToronto and the Blockchain Futurist Conference, Canada’s largest blockchain conference, on August 15 to 16. Shibacals, Shib’s IRL auxiliary, showcased over 50 toys and authenticated collectibles during the event, making the Shib booth a showstopper once again among the thousands of attendees.
But perhaps the biggest part of the conference was the keynote speech spearheaded by Shytoshi Kusama, which was delivered in the form of a 17-minute video. The keynote chronicled Shib’s achievements thus far and the future plans set forth for the ecosystem, including Shibdentity, Shib: The Metaverse, Shiboshi NFTs, Shibacals, and the framework for a decentralized digital global state with a dependable governance system. Members of the Shiba Inu core team spoke one by one, starting with Shytoshi revealing, for the first time, the release of the Shibarium mainnet.
CoinAgenda: CoinAgenda speaking events are an avenue where you can find the who’s who in blockchain and crypto, and it happens in different places around the world multiple times a year. The events worth highlighting are CoinAgenda Global 2023 (October 4-6), where Shib was part of the Metaverse panel, and CoinAgenda Caribbean 2023 (December 11-13), where one of the main events was a featured presentation tackling the Shiba network state and the Web3 SuperApp.
Shibarium Launch
On August 16, which was also the last day of ETHToronto, the Shibarium mainnet was officially launched. This layer-2 network which was deployed to Ethereum is designed to address the common scalability issues users encounter and provide opportunities to those who want to build projects on Shib’s own blockchain. What differentiates Shibarium from other scaling solutions, as Shytoshi emphasized shortly after the launch, is that it fuels Shib’s governance and the Shiba State framework.
PartnerSHIBs and Frens + The Shib Magazine
Shib has established “partnershibs” with numerous amazing projects that have a common objective for the ecosystem. These collaborations demonstrate Shib’s impetus for instigating and nurturing connections with like-minded organizations, brands, and industries that will benefit the community. In 2023, Shib announced its official partnership with the Manny Pacquiao Foundation and D3, with the overview of each partnership presented in their own exclusive feature articles in The Shib magazine.
On the subject of articles, the team has featured several projects that Shib supports and that support Shib as well in the recently launched community-oriented tech magazine, The Shib. At the forefront of these special features is Welly, Shib’s partner in the fast-food industry and one of its pioneering true-blue partnershibs. Following this, the community has seen a couple of other remarkable projects grace the cover of the magazine, including CoinMerge, Marswap, and ‘MareBears by RSTLSS. Each one of these projects offers equally beneficial opportunities to the Shib Army in various capacities.
Shib: The Metaverse
Since their last update, the metaverse team has made significant strides in advancing the development of this project, particularly in aspects that are not immediately visible but are crucial for something this huge. The majority of this project is underpinned by complex systems including blueprinting, servers, and infrastructure that require meticulous attention.
In recent months, the team has focused on several key areas to prepare for the Alpha release. These include the chat and voice messaging service, the Avatar Builder, the Plot Builder, and the metaverse’s own AI systems. They’ve started exploring Artificial Intelligence for integration into future updates and to ensure a strong foundation for the live version. This includes tools not only for NPCs but also for design-related aspects, such as “text to 3D” for use in marketplaces and Plot Builder design tools. Engine upgrades have also been made during the development process.
At the moment, the metaverse team is hard at work on the first build for the Alpha version and is preparing to start testing with the community, intending to give priority to holders of Lands, Leash, and Shiboshis. Another current focus is the development and implementation of stories and quests to regularly enrich the MV experience. This is to ensure that users are not only motivated by the intrinsic incentives of a project like this but also have the opportunity to explore collective missions. These will be implemented in the Alpha versions and will continuously expand to create campaigns and collective missions tied to the Shib universe.
Shib Burns
Shib recently made headlines with back-to-back mega $SHIB burns following the monumental spike of Shibarium transactions early last month, resulting in over 200 million total transactions as of this writing.
On December 4th, the Shiba Inu team sent a total of 8.24 billion SHIB tokens to a dead wallet in a single transaction. Two weeks later, a second burn of 8.61 billion tokens occurred, followed by a third one clocking in at 8.53 billion. On December 23rd, the team continued its aggressive token burn strategy, burning a further 8.47 billion SHIB tokens worth $90,307. This marks the fourth major burn, bringing the total to over 33.8 billion SHIB.
In an X thread, Shytoshi explained the role of global adoption in having impactful burns, paving the way for a paradigm shift to elevate crypto, blockchain, and Web3 to a global standard. He added that with the help of the community, this shift will support the technology that is being built and will ultimately lead to the expansion of the Shiba State and reinforce the Shib Army’s identity as the greatest community in the world.
ShibaSwap
A lot of work has been happening in the background with ShibaSwap. The team is in the process of updating ShibaSwap.com to have hosting capabilities for LP and transactions on Shibarium. There are also other minor DEX updates being done.
But the biggest update to look forward to is its integration into the Hub. A total remodel of the design and user experience will be combined with the latest upgrades for decentralized exchanges (concentrated liquidity, claimable rewards at anytime without having to remove your current liquidity, and a whole new social aspect). So, stay tuned on The Shib in 2024 to learn more about these developments.
As we say goodbye to an eventful year, Shib remains steadfast in its vision and purpose from the humble origins of Ryoshi’s era to its evolution into a torchbearer of decentralization. Moving from a community born of a meme coin to a committed army of Shiba Inu holders and supporters, we have grown in strength and numbers in 2023. So, as we welcome the New Year, let us remember who we are and what we’re here for: may this coming 2024 solidify our battle cry as #SHIBARMYSTRONG.
