Elon Musk Going After Shiba Inu? Twitter Bans Shibburn Burn Tracker
Musk's Twitter suspends Shiba Inu burn tracking bot. Another attack on crypto Twitter? | Credit: Shutterstock
Key Takeaways
- Twitter suspended Shibburn bot without an explanation
- Why users/exchanges ‘burn’ tokens
- Why is Twitter taking down crypto accounts?
Another crypto-related account has been suspended by Twitter. Fan-favorite Shibburn found its application suddenly suspended with no explanation from the platform. This is not the first time Twitter suddenly suspends a crypto Twitter account, causing damages to its business.
Is Elon Musk’s Twitter on the offensive against Twitter crypto tools?
Shibburn Twitter Burn Track Suspended
Shibburn consistently provided information on Shiba Inu burns since 2021. The application used a Twitter bot to automatically show information about these burns to followers in real time. However, the Twitter bot/application was suddenly suspended by Twitter.
Shibburn tweeted in response to its Twitter bot getting suspended. On Saturday, the application’s official Twitter account mentioned that the “app has been active on Twitter for the past two years without any issues or violations of the platform’s rules.”
@shibburn also mentioned that a “message on the Developer Portal states that our app has violated Twitter Rules and policies. It also mentioned that an email containing further details was sent to us, but we never received that email. Furthermore, we have been facing difficulties in submitting a support ticket as no form shows up.”
After announcing the abrupt suspension, Shibburn quickly redirected followers to Shibburn.com to access real-time updates on Shiba Inu burning.
The incident raises several questions, most notably, why is Twitter suddenly banning these crypto accounts?
Introducing Shiba Inu
First, let’s talk about Shiba Inu, the Ethereum-based altcoin that features the Shiba Inu hunting dog as its mascot. The cryptocurrency was created in 2020 as an alternative to DogeCoin, even recognized as “the Dogecoin killer” by its supporters, also known as the SHIBArmy.
The creator of the token is called Ryoshi. However, interestingly, no one knows whether Ryoshi is a single individual or a group of people. Shiba Inu reached its peak value in October 2021, with a market capitalization of $41 billion. At the time of writing this article, Shiba Inu’s market capitalization floats somewhere around $6 billion. But, it’s still considered in the top ten all meme cryptocurrencies.
The token’s adorably named “woof paper ”, a play on “white paper”, explains the concept behind Shiba Inu being “What would happen if a cryptocurrency project was 100% run by its community?” citing that it’s an “experiment in decentralized spontaneous community building.”
Burning Shiba Inu
As mentioned earlier, Shibburn is a tracker that focused on Shiba Inu’s burning activity. Thankfully, there are no animals harmed in the process. However, burning crypto is a common activity that exchanges might regularly do to influence the market.
Burning crypto, such as Shiba Inu, is the process of permanently removing some tokens from circulation in an effort to drive up their value. It’s the simple concept of increasing the value of an asset by decreasing its supply. The amount and rate of token burning may vary depending on the total number of tokens created, the value of the token, and the desire hodlers have for driving up the prices.
For reference, Shiba Inu started with 999,988,959,863,511 tokens. And, at the time of writing this article, 410,650,068,247,541 tokens have been burned, with more in the pipeline. At this rate, one can expect half of the initial amount of tokens to be left by the end of the week.
There’s a strong chance that severe Shiba Inu burning is in response to the sharp drop in the token’s value earlier this month.
Twitter’s Crypto/Bot Problem
This is not the first time that Twitter, under Elon Musk’s management, suddenly suspends a crypto-related account for “bot-like” activities. Earlier this month, Twitter suspended @explainthisbob, a popular Twitter account that provided humorous insights on bigger topics discussed on the platform.
@explainthisbob is a Twitter account that used AI tools to explain the context of a tweet to users who prompted it to.
@explainthisbob is also tied to a crypto token (BOB) that saw a sharp drop in value after the Twitter suspension as the token’s value is based on its social activity, mainly on Twitter. Ironically, this occurred not too long after Elon Musk himself had tweeted “I love Bob.”
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, he’s been on a mission to take down bots that he claims infest the platform and are used to sway public opinions on both global and local matters.
Back in February, Musk claimed that “free API is being abused badly right now by bot scammers & opinion manipulators. There’s no verification process or cost, so easy to spin up 100k bots to do bad things.”
He also suggested that “Just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification will clean things up greatly.”
After a long thread of responses from followers, Musk agreed to provide a “write-only API for bots providing good content that is free.”
