According to a press release on Monday, Shiba Inu, an Ethereum-based ecosystem symbolized by the second-largest dog-themed token SHIB, raised $12 million in a token sale round to construct its blockchain with an emphasis on privacy.Investors that bought the upcoming utility and governance token TREAT for the new network, including Comma 3 Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Cypher Capital, Shima Capital, Hercules Ventures, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Woodstock Fund, DWF Ventures, Polygon Ventures, Stake Capital, Illuminati Digital Capital, Primal Capital, Mechanism Capital, and Spirit Dao, are listed as participants in the round.
The press announcement also stated that Shiba Inu Mint S.A., an ecosystem development company registered in Panama, closed the acquisition.The fundraising was prompted by a February CoinDesk story that revealed Shiba Inu developers were collaborating with cryptography startup Zama on a new, privacy-focused network atop Shibarium, the ecosystem’s layer-2 blockchain running on Ethereum.Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a privacy technique that enables developers to use data on untrusted domains without requiring it to be decrypted, will power the network.
Over the last day, SHIB increased 2.2%, matching the rise of the CoinDesk 20 Index as a whole.Its market capitalization is close to $16 billion, making it the 12th largest cryptocurrency.