Is Half Shiba a SCAM? The new token aims to reduce Shiba Inu’s (SHIB) market cap — project analysis

An interesting project called HalfShiba (aka $Shiba0.5) showed up at the top of Google Trends on January 26. According to the official website, it is a token that will allow to take trillions of Shiba Inu (SHIB) out of supply and thus increase the value of the SHIB meme coin. But according to Shiba Inu lead developer Delomiro, the new project’s creators’ goal may be to capture your funds. We’ve gathered a lot of facts to see if that’s true.

What is Half Shiba, and what is the project about?

The site does not give a clear description of what the project does or what its goals are. Here’s the only thing that’s written:

“Half Shiba Inu is one of the first tokens to be paired with $SHIB LP [liquidity pool]. To utilize SHIB token and prevent bots probably means scalper bots are a program that trades independently on the exchange with less risk according to a preset algorithm and snipers market players who try to be the first to buy cryptocurrency when the liquidity pool is added to the decentralized exchange.”

By “paired with $SHIB LP,” it most likely means that the new token can be exchanged for Shiba Inu and back. It’s mentioned below on the website. The scheme is to exchange ETH to SHIB first, and then SHIB to SHIB0.5.

Every transaction burns $Shib, and currently over $1 billion in SHIB has been burned, says the post on the Half Shia Telegram channel. Thus, the creators can remove trillions of Shiba tokens from circulation in this way. Their exact number at the moment is 549T out of 589,7T mined. Maximum supply, however, has not been set. The high supply has a negative impact on the value of the asset. At the time of this writing, SHIB is trading at $0.00001161 per coin. 

The actions with Half Shiba will be similar to burning when a certain amount of tokens are withdrawn from circulation and transferred to an inactive cryptocurrency wallet. This should lead to less Shiba in the market, increasing demand and, consequently, the value of the remaining coins in circulation. And in the case of Half Shiba, the original coins are converted to Shib0.5. 

There is slightly more information available on the cryptocurrency monitoring platform CoinAlpha. From there, it became known that the project had been launched on January 16, 2023. The current number of holders of the coin is 27 people. Also, there is information on the market capitalization, which, according to the site, is equal to $942T. And there are allegedly quadrillion Shiba0.5 on the market right now. 

The data on Etherscan, on the other hand, is probably correct:

• Max. total supply: 1,000,000 SHIB0.5.
• Holder: 516.
• Transfers: 3,721.

Is the long journey of Half Shiba still beginning? 

Almost all of the project’s social networks are inactive. For example, Medium gets an error 410 (the author deleted the page). Twitter with 357 subscribers or a completely blank Telegram channel with 593 subscribers.

A lot more activity occurs in the Telegram channel Half Shiba for the Chinese community. There are only 18 subscribers, but just one of them got attention. A certain L D noted that the long journey of Shiba0.5 is just beginning, and explained why the token is waiting for success.

• It’s the first token that is directly paired to Shiba Inu. But what’s the point?
• Every transaction burns SHIB. Currently over 1B token burned. If the maximum number of Half Shiba is 1 million, as written in Etherscan, and the coins are burned 1 to 1, how did they burn 1B coins?
• The contract is renounced, and the LP is burned. Thus, this token essentially cannot “rug” a crypto scam in which fraudsters lie to the public to attract funding and quickly run off with investors. Shibarium Layer-2 blockchain scaling solution is launching soon. Shib0.5 will enable a migration that will allow Shibaswap a decentralized finance platform to burn SHIB in every transaction. Burns for SHIB to reach $1 are currently several thousand years, Shib0.5 will greatly reduce this time. There is no official information that Half Shiba has anything to do with Shiba Inu. We asked for more information on Half Shiba from its creators or people close to the project, but at the time of this writing, we have not received a reply. 

HALF SHIBA INU

$SHIB0.5 just announced they will be migrating to #shibarium when it launches. Also liquidity paired with $SHIB @EricCryptoman @ChadCaff @CryptoKvon @SirGMI @CryptoPeltz

TGhttps://t.co/FKh5JPcr0Z

— DrCryptoDawg (@growthewolfpack) January 19, 2023

But a Shiba expert and one of the participants in the Shibarium project tell us the following:

“I don’t know if it is a scam but I can confirm [that] it has nothing to do with Shiba Inu. The project tokens only have SHIB, LEASH a native token on ShibaSwap, and BONE a governance token for ShibaSwap ecosystem, allowing community participants to decide the fate of the project by voting,” he says.

• Organic community growth with Matt Lorion (1,5M TikTok followers) creating a video (currently on 54K views within less than half a day). In the video, Matt says that with the help of Half Shiba, it will soon be possible to earn millions. And the reliability of the project is confirmed by the theory that billionaire and Alliance Global Group CEO Andrew Tan is allegedly involved in it.

But have you seen @HalfShibaInu ? Paired with $Shib and created by massive whale dev. LP burnt, zero tax and $shib whales are starting to take notice. Check out this video…MAJOR ALPHA #HALFSHIB pic.twitter.com/Ip2fHxIEph

— Half Shiba $Shib05 (@Degenqueen2) January 18, 2023

What do they say about the project on the internet?

The creators of Half Shiba say they are connected to the original project, but there is no mention of this anywhere, whether on the official Shiba Inu Twitter page or the subreddit.

In general, in the Twitter feed for the query “Half Shiba” or “Shiba0.5″ there are many mentions of the project. However, most of them copy each other and lack information. Here are some examples.

$SHIB WHALES BEHOLD, @halfshibainu is the first LP paired to only $SHIB and burnt.

In order to buy #halfshiba you need to buy $shib and swap $shib for $shiba0.5

Alfa: https://t.co/nqYweNUEHH

: https://t.co/kPJob8MUrk

0x8Eb94A06b4716093DBfE335cbdb098DEb2dcdE1b

0/0 Tax pic.twitter.com/eROdAjUKDe

— SHIB ARMY (@ShibaArmy2021) January 18, 2023

This is also mentioned on the official Half Shiba website. Once again, a link to the tiktoker.

Half Shiba Inu is putting up some numbers, & the community is fantastic!

The liquidity is in $SHIB, so when you swap you get Shiba Inu!

Lots of stuff in store here, 100% decentralized. No team tokens!

Chart: https://t.co/IIn5zshLfr

TG: https://t.co/H8n1B0hPS3

— Shiba Archives (@ShibaArchives) January 25, 2023

This is a screenshot from the only exchange where you can buy Shib0.5. As you can see, the token even has a value and is supposedly traded at $0.4630 ($0.5906 at the time of writing). We will not provide the link due to security reasons.

Get ready for the bullrun… pic.twitter.com/B3OV26SKoq

— half shiba supporter (@HalfShibaWhale) January 18, 2023

There are many such posts, but there are even opposing opinions. The trader and investor Delomiro strongly recommends not interacting with Shib0.5 under any circumstances. According to him, Half Shiba steals not only SHIB coins but also BONE coins from wallets.

Is Half Inu a scam or not? Conclusion

At the beginning of January, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler named several signs of a scam. According to his observations, there are certain “red flags” that are inherent in unreliable crypto projects. Here they are:

• the project has no transparent and clear documentation or the creators refuse to provide it;
• the project meets regulatory requirements only theoretically, but there is no evidence to prove it;
• the creators cannot explain the principles of their project in simple and clear language;
• the investor is rushed, promised high profits, and flooded with obscure and complex terms about the project.

We checked information about Shiba0.5 on security subreddits (CryptoScams and CryptoScamsReport), but there is no information about the project on the resources. There is no mention of it in the Scam Alert database either.

The number of transactions, according to Etherscan, is approaching 4K, and it continues to grow. Above, we have gathered facts for you to make an educated decision on the project.

You should also pay attention to the recent SHIB token giveaway, which is probably a scam. The organizers planned to give away 10B tokens. The scheme involved a link that encouraged users to connect their wallet. Thus, hackers can withdraw the funds in a few seconds.

“There are reports that if you actually click on the link it will try connecting your wallet. YOU WILL LOSE IT ALL. If you have already clicked it and haven’t lost your funds, I would strongly suggest moving your coins/tokens to another wallet AS SOON AS POSSIBLE,” warned the post’s author. 

Here’s a picture of the subreddit to avoid.