Mysterious personality Shytoshi Kusama clarified in a podcast that aired Tuesday that not he but Ryoshi is the founder of the Shiba Inu SHIB/USD ecosystem.
What happened: In the first episode of a 44-part podcast series, Kusama said he joined Shiba Inu like any other member of the community.
"I get that question or that comment all the time. ‘You're the founder of SHIB.' No, I'm not. Ryoshi is the founder," the pseudonymous lead stated. "I actually joined SHIB six months after its birth."
Kusama revealed that he was lured to the vision that SHIB would eventually overtake Dogecoin DOGE/USD, the preeminent meme coin project. “Our drive was to overtake DOGE,” he said.
He added that he was working on the roadmap provided to him by Ryoshi in the early days, which included five tokens and four pieces of technology.
The five tokens are SHIB, Doge Killer (LEASH), Bone ShibaSwap BONE/USD, the upcoming and "extremely important" TREAT, and SHI, the stablecoin.
The technologies are decentralized exchange ShibaSwap, Layer-2 chain Shibarium, the ShibaCon conference, and stablecoin SHI, which stands in both categories.
Why It Matters: Kusama has steered the Shiba Inu ecosystem since the abrupt exit of Ryoshi in 2022.
In July of last year, he stated that the project was nearing completion of founder Ryoshi's vision of a completely decentralized system with no leader and that he, too, would "step away from the limelight" at some point.
Kusama keeps his identity a secret, possibly drawing inspiration from the anonymity of Bitcoin BTC/USD creator Satoshi Nakamoto. He made his first public appearance in Japan last year but disguised himself with a Batman-styled mask.
Price Action: At the time of writing, SHIB was exchanging hands at $0.00002201, up 4.37% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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