Who is Shytoshi Kusama? Background on the Brains Behind Shiba Inu

Despite the massive market success and over a million-strong social media following, the real identities of the Shiba Inu (SHIB) cryptocurrency founders have remained shrouded in mystery to this day. While we know that Shytoshy Kusama is the lead developer and co-founder of the Shiba Inu ecosystem, we don’t know his name, age, or any other personal information.

Shytoshi Kusama is a fictitious name used by a SHIB co-founder and one of the leading Shiba Inu developers to veil his or her identity. This is similar to the case of the Bitcoin founder (or a group of founders), who used the name Satoshi Nakamoto as a pseudonym to hide their real identity.

Who is Shytoshi Kusama?

As mentioned earlier, Shytoshi Kusama is the lead developer and co-founder of the Shiba Inu ecosystem and SHIB token. While Shytoshi Kusama’s identity continues to remain a mystery to this day, the developer has consistently remained committed to the development of the project since its inception while refusing to disclose his name or any other personal information.

While it is still unclear whether Satoshi Nakamoto refers to a single person or a group of people, Shytoshi Kusama appears to be a single person, deducing from some of his statements. Here’s one of Shytoshi Kusama’s earliest tweets:

Shytoshi Kusama has been present in the Twitter space since January 2021. However, he started becoming very active on the social media platform in April 2021.

Oh man… 3500 followers. Nice to meet you all. Now that I’m not on the official @Shibtoken Twitter anymore…this is just my little corner of the world to vent and talk. Life is crazy right now but I’m so proud of the community I am humbly part of.

— Shytoshi Kusama™ (@ShytoshiKusama) April 21, 2021

According to Kusama, he was an active community member and social media poster on the Shibtoken Twitter account before becoming the developer for the project.

From that point on, he has continued to use the same Shytoshy Kusama Twitter account to unveil several updates to the SHIB community. Shytoshi Kusama has gained massive popularity on Twitter as he continues to use the platform as an opportunity to attend to whatever complications are faced by members of the community. Shytoshi Kusama is very active in providing the latest updates on Shiba Inu, Shiba coin burns, and Shibarium, which has grown his Twitter followings to over 860,000 members.

In addition to his Twitter presence, the Shiba Inu co-founder is active on Instagram – under the “shytoshikusama” handle – and on Medium as well.

Who created the Shiba Inu coin?

Opening statements from the Shiba Inu whitepaper.

Although the creator of the Shiba Inu coin has refused to unwrap his identity to the public, the anonymous crypto developer goes by Ryoshi. Since the emergence of the Shiba ecosystem in August 2020, the project has managed to attract the interest of many crypto users and has grown to become popular as its creator continues to make several innovations within the ecosystem.

These developments are often disclosed anonymously shared by Shytoshi Kusama and other team members within the Shiba ecosystem. Ryoshi, Shiba Inu’s creator, and Shytoshi Kusama, a lead developer in the Shiba Inu network, have worked effortlessly to enhance the efficiency of the project. However, they have remained anonymous so far. Somewhat surprisingly, Ryoshi stated in May 2022 that he would get out of crypto. Since then, Shytoshi Kusama has taken over the mantle of being the volunteer project lead.

What do we know about the Shiba Inu founder Ryoshi?

Ryoshi has been confirmed as the creator of the Shiba Inu coin. Following many efforts and various inquiries to disclose more details on his true identity, Ryoshi has taken to a blog post in May 2022 to let the mass know that it was enough to know his fake name and that making efforts to uncover his identity was unnecessary. Although the blog post has since been deleted, his statement is quoted below:

«I have said from the beginning, I am a nobody, I am not important. The efforts to unmask my “identity” even if successful would be underwhelming. I am just some guy of no consequence tapping at a keyboard and I am replaceable. I am Ryoshi.»

Announcing his decision to exit the crypto space, he encouraged the community members to take the SHIBA journey forward, noting that he is not important, and would be gone without notice. While the motivation for his actions is not clear, the fact remains that the SHIB founder abruptly disappeared and deleted his tweets and Medium blog.

Although the reason for Ryoshi’s exit and decision to stay anonymous remains unknown, it appears that Ryoshi was using his abrupt decision to highlight the point that SHIB is a decentralized token that belongs to the community and not him alone. By staying anonymous and making the development of the project open to the community members, Ryoshi believes that this will make everyone accountable to the progress of the network and its future.

After Ryoshi’s departure, Shytoshi Kusama said that the Shiba Inu developers will “actualize Ryoshi’s vision and plan for this grand experiment.”

Shytoshi Kusama’s net worth

Shytoshi Kusama is thought to be in control of a blockchain address with over $850 million worth of crypto assets.

Despite the undisclosed identity of Shytoshi Kusama, there are a few indications that have helped predict his net worth. While there is some evidence behind these claims, it’s best to remember that these net worth assessing claims are still mostly speculations.

While inspecting the Ethereum blockchain, indications on the wealthiest individual SHIB token holder were found through the Shiba Inu contract address. In addition to being the address with the most SHIB tokens, it was easy to predict that the wallet address belonged to Shytoshi Kusama because it was discovered to have held Shiba Inu tokens since the coin was first released.

At the time of writing, the blockchain wallet address which has been linked to Shytoshi Kusama has more than $300,000,000 in Shiba Inu coins. Accounting for other coins, Kusama could potentially have a net worth of more than $850,000,000.

Given the large exposure to the price movement of SHIB, Kusama’s net worth hinges upon Shiba Inu’s market performance. It is worth noting that despite the 2022 market crash, SHIB performed better this year than numerous other cryptos, including crypto staples like Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Bitcoin Cash.

Closing Remark

Although bad actors may have adopted the anonymous trend to rip people off, anonymity in and of itself does not automatically imply scams, nor does it indicate malicious operations.

In the case of Shiba Inu, this could not have been more apparent. The lead developer of Shiba Inu, Shyotshi Kusama, its creator, Ryoshi, and the broader Shiba Inu team, have managed to build one of the biggest ecosystems in the crypto market despite not putting themselves as individuals in the limelight.

Their decisions echo the core principle of Shiba Inu – a cryptocurrency that is owned by and developed by its decentralized community.

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