Who Let the Dogs Out?

First of all, what is SHIB? Just another meme coin or much bigger.  

SHIB, in its simplest form, is a meme coin, but it strives to be much more than that. SHIB was created back in August 2020 with the goal of being a cryptocurrency project run 100% by its community. Since its creation, SHIB has been dubbed the "DOGE killer" because it’s supposed to be more community-driven than DOGE coin.

SHIB first gained popularity back in late January when WARONRUGS audited the coin and gave them the all-clear. They said that Vitalik was sent 100% of the liquidity of the coin and 50% of the supply. When doing their audit, they did say, "To be perfectly clear, Vitalik can rug you. Will he do it? Certainly not. There's no incentive for him to tarnish his reputation for 200 ETH." 

One word: Shiba— #WARONRUGS❌ (@WARONRUGS) January 31, 2021

Since WARONRUGS' audit, SHIB has grown by more than 50000% at one time, reaching an all-time high of $0.00003791. This might not seem like much money, but people have billions of these coins, so it adds up real quick. 

For Vitalik to make the $1 billion donation, he drained all the liquidity from Uniswap and transferred trillions of SHIB to India Covid Relief. Critics are calling this move a rug, while supporters are enthralled by the generosity Vitalik showed.

India Covid Relief Fund was set up by Polygon's founder Sandeep Nailwal to help combat the second wave of COVID-19 the country is facing. After the donation was made to help ease the nerves of SHIB hodlers, Nailwal tweeted, "One thing we have learnt from Ethereum and Vitalik Buterin is importance of community. We will not do anything which hurts any community, especially the retail community involved with $SHIB. We will act responsibly! Plz, don't worry $SHIB holders". 

Many people have pointed out that Vitaliks donation might be a good move for the crypto community as a whole. They say it helps end the run of meme coins and centers the attention toward traditional projects like BTC and ETH. 

There have been many critics of this donation, one of the loudest is WARONRUGS, the account that first helped boost the coin. They call it the biggest rug of all time and point out that Vitalik was gifted the coins in the expectation that he wouldn't use them. They say all the people affected by this donation are the hodlers of SHIB, the ones that made the price skyrocket.

The biggest rug of all time. Vitalik dumping more than 13,000 ETH, sending the few $SHIB tokenized ETH remaining to India Covid Crypto Fund. Literally panicking the markets. And people still seeing him as a hero. Vitalik should get his own scam advisory. https://t.co/9eUeQfPIMB-#WARONRUGS❌ (@WARONRUGS) May 12, 2021

Since the donation, SHIB has fallen by about 50%, and the donation caused a panic in the market, shooting up gas prices. 

WARONRUGS created a new coin called Rug Ethereum (RETH) for the sole purpose of killing Ethereum. They said, "While miners keep on killing the network through gas fees, it's time to help them finish it as retaliation." The coin uses a tax method to borrow ETH on Venus and dump it for BNB. This shaping up to be an unknown war between WARONRUGS and Vitalik.

Tldr: Rug Ethereum $RETH is a drama token that will probably not rug Ethereum. It was created in retaliation after Vitalik rug pulled Shiba Inu $SHIB.— #WARONRUGS❌ (@WARONRUGS) May 15, 2021

It goes without saying that the money donated was for a good cause, but there is the question of whether Vitalik should've used his own money to make this donation instead of using the SHIB he was gifted. So, was this a rug pull or a heroic act? Let us know on our Discord.