The creation of the BONE token was initially intended to reward SHIB holders, but its purpose was later changed to facilitate SHIB burns through Shibarium, according to Lucie, the official marketing lead of Shiba Inu (SHIB). Lucie’s tweets addressed concerns about slow SHIB burns and emphasized the decentralized nature of Shiba Inu, similar to Bitcoin’s ethos.
Lucie shared interesting details about the origins of the BONE token and why the mysterious SHIB founder Ryoshi wanted to create it. The original plan was to reward SHIB holders, but it was later shifted to facilitate SHIB burns using the Shibarium layer-2 solution. It is unclear whether this decision was made before or after Ryoshi’s departure from the project in May 2022.
Currently, BONE tokens are used for transactions on Shibarium and serve as a method for paying gas fees. A portion of these fees is allocated to developers for network maintenance, while the rest is converted into SHIB and transferred to unspendable wallets for burning. Lucie emphasized the importance of each token fulfilling its role within the Shibarium ecosystem.
In response to concerns about slow SHIB burns and the lack of contribution from the developer team, Lucie highlighted that Shiba Inu operates without a centralized authority, similar to Bitcoin. She explained that the team cannot arbitrarily burn SHIB tokens because Ryoshi destroyed his own burn keys and passed the vision to Shytoshi Kusama.
The primary purpose of creating SHIB was to encourage developers to build their own products and decentralized applications within the Shiba Inu ecosystem. Therefore, Lucie stated that those who want increased SHIB burns must develop tools with significant utility. When the team earns BONE tokens through these tools, they will be converted into SHIB and burned.
Earlier this year, Shibarium’s DAMN protocol was released with the goal of burning BONE with each transaction, restricting the circulation of DAMN tokens and increasing their scarcity and value.
In the past 24 hours, there has been a significant surge in the burn rate for SHIB, with a total of 26,430,838 SHIB tokens eliminated. The largest burn involved 24,176,493 SHIB tokens, while the second largest involved transferring 1,000,000 SHIB meme coins to an unspendable blockchain wallet. This surge in the burn rate represents a staggering increase of 5,803.56%.