According to U.Today, the official marketing lead for Shiba Inu, known as Lucie, has explained the original purpose behind the creation of the BONE token by the project's founder, Ryoshi. Initially, the BONE token was intended to serve as a reward for SHIB holders. However, the objective was later altered to facilitate SHIB burns using the layer-2 solution, Shibarium. Lucie did not specify whether this decision was made before or after Ryoshi's departure from the project in May 2022.
Now, BONE tokens are used to power transactions on Shibarium, acting as a means for paying gas fees. A portion of these fees is allocated for developers to continue maintaining the network, while the rest is converted into SHIB and moved to unspendable wallets to be burned. Lucie stressed the importance of each token playing its own role within the Shibarium ecosystem.
In a separate tweet, Lucie addressed complaints about the slow rate of SHIB burns and the current lack of contribution from the developer team. She compared SHIB to Bitcoin, stating that there is no centralized authority behind Shiba Inu, much like the original cryptocurrency created by the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto. Lucie reminded the community that the team cannot burn SHIB at will, as Ryoshi destroyed his own burn keys and passed the vision to Shytoshi Kusama.
Lucie further explained that the creation of SHIB was intended to encourage other developers to build their products and decentralized applications (dApps) around Shiba Inu. Therefore, those who wish for more SHIB meme coins to be burned should create tools with high utility. In this scenario, the team would earn BONE, which they would then convert into SHIB and burn. Lucie emphasized that anyone can build around SHIB, much like Bitcoin, but doing so requires significant financial investment, focus, and persistence.