It was an announcement that sent waves of excitement crashing across the crypto ecosystem, and particularly the meme token world!
The press release from Shiba Inu on Monday cut straight to the chase: the beloved dog-themed meme coin had raised $12 million from a clutch of investors. But beyond that simple headline that made the crypto world sit up and take notice – and the fact that the statement came right after Token2049 in Dubai where Shiba Inu took some bold steps to make its presence felt – lay the real treasure trove. For those who have followed Shib’s mesmerizing journey with patience and deep faith, it offered tantalizing details of a fast coalescing roadmap to a magical future that would make any Shib Army jump and woof in excitement!
Here is some context that will make the implications of this heady announcement more absorbable. Shiba Inu has never been shy of shouting out loud its ambitious target of onboarding the next one billion users – people who are mostly not very familiar with crypto but would also be interested in learning more and even partaking of the new pieces of technology being unveiled and talked about every day. In other words, pulling in the crypto-curious individuals.
Any crypto project that onboards a billion new users will simply be a winner in this race for the planet’s financial future by sheer heft. But it is also a world of stiff competition, with every blockchain out there targeting the same prize! It’s a race to build heft, to pull in as many users as possible. And the winner could take it all!
That is why this is an epochal moment for SHIB. What this fundraise has done is to give SHIB a war chest to fight this epic battle successfully, evening the odds in a fight that pits it against the Goliaths of crypto.
Now, a quick look at the details: The fundraise came from a group of big name investors — Mechanism Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Cypher Capital, Shima Capital, DWF Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, Hercules Ventures, Animoca Brands, Foresight Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Woodstock Fund, Polygon Ventures, Stake Capital, Illuminati Digital Capital, Primal Capital, STIX, and Spirit Dao.
Those are not just a few names from the world of finance. Each of them means something for Shiba Inu’s grand vision. Shytoshi Kusama, the pseudonymous lead developer of the Shiba Inu Project, articulated it so well to The Street in an interview on the fundraise: “What we did is that we made sure that some of the most powerful people in the world have skin in our game, so to speak.”
Yes, this is not just about building a war chest; it is also about gaining powerful allies for the long battle ahead.
Because that battle requires new tools, powerful new weapons – things no one else in crypto has rolled out yet – and new allies. “Through the involvement of these venture capital firms and their strategic partners, we are expanding not only our network of trusted partners, but also exponentially increasing what Shiba Inu can truly be capable of for our community, The Shib Army,” Kusama said in the statement that announced the fundraise to the world.
Polygon Ventures, one of the new investors, praised Shib’s unique approach to this value building in a post on X (formerly Twitter) soon after the announcement: Memecoins can be bootstrapped in two ways, it explained. One is to start with utility, and then add memetic value. Shib, it said, had opted for the alternative route, which is to start with memetic value, and then add utility!
“Now, they’re expanding their efforts to build a FHE blockchain aimed at bringing privacy and trust to all.”
The newly acquired funds will help Shiba Inu build a raft of new things, strategically equipping it for realizing its vision and becoming a force of change not just in crypto, but in the world itself.
Foremost of these, of course, is a new blockchain, a layer 3 with built-in FHE from partner Zama. For more details on Fully Homomorphic Encryption and how it works, go here.
Don’t get us wrong. This is not just a shiny new piece of technology.
An L3 chain will help improve security and regulatory compliance – things that will become more important than ever as increased regulatory scrutiny is sure to follow as Shib starts to attract those billion users. But beyond compliance, it is also about building trust with all those users, building credibility, and delivering on the promise and dream that have helped the Shib Army keep faith in this project.
If you look at what Shib is building toward, the need for an L3 is a no-brainer. Layer-3s offer unparalleled scalability, enabling high-volume transactions and supporting complex applications seamlessly. That scalability is non-negotiable when we talk of a billion new users!
The enhanced treasury will also help build the technology stack while increasing the usability and portability of its technology, further increasing Shib’s reach and the convenience it will offer to its users.
A $TREAT Waiting for Everyone!
The new layer-3 chain will use $TREAT as its governance and utility token, playing a role similar to $BONE on the Shibarium L2 chain. Now, here is the interesting part. The funds came from the sale of TREAT, although the token itself has not been released yet. It is a big endorsement of the credibility and trust of this project, and the vision of the founders, that so many big investors were happy to spend millions of dollars to buy the token.
“The @treatsforShib project is a meaningful step up for the @Shibtoken ecosystem and we are excited to be backing the new team incorporating FHE technology to deliver privacy and various UX upgrades for users,” Big Brain Holdings said in a tweet following the announcement.
Woodstock Fund said: “$TREAT fits the narrative of building infra on top of a loyal community, flipping the usual narrative of building tech to attract a community.”
So when will TREAT be released? Well, Shib still has some secrets up its sleeve, which it will announce when the time is ripe. For now, this is what Kusama said: “We have a variety of partners in the pipeline that we will announce as we move forward to the end of this year.” He added that $TREAT would hit the public market this year. Stay tuned!
If you are a Shib Army, all this is super-exciting. But remember, the scammers are excited too. There are already some scam TREAT tokens trading on certain exchanges. Those are not, repeat, not the real $TREAT tokens. Shib will announce through its official channels when TREAT is ready to roll out. Don’t fall for the FOMO!
This is the time to celebrate as the Shiba Inu team prepares to deliver on its promise on realizing Ryoshi’s vision. (You can read more about it elsewhere in this edition).
