Empowering Women A Priority For SHIB Metaverse

Shiba Inu, the meme coin that became legit due to the passion of its founders and the community that spontaneously formed around, is building a massively multiplayer Metaverse, SHIB, which debuted last week at SXSW. The effort is being led by entertainment technology executive Marcie Jastrow, and Sherri Cuono.

I spoke with Jastrow and co-head of development for SHIB, who goes by the pseudonym Shytoshi Kusama, while she was attending the 3rd annual conference of The International Women of Blockchain (IWB) which took place last week in Washington, DC, during Women’s History Month. Kusama established a fund, beginning with a personal contribution of $25,000, to benefit The International Woman of Blockchain, a 501 (c) 3.

NFAI, a project that aims to make traditional hedge fund and lending ecosystems available to De-fi users via the power of A.I., has also pledged $10,000. Together with additional donations by Jastrow, Sherri Cuono and Lisa M Watts, the fund has raised $45,000 thus far. “We will never reach full adoption until blockchain is accessible and utilized by all genders and nationalities,” said Kusama. Using the vast Shiba-Inu network in the blockchain world, and large social media following, Kusma says he will ask the #SHIBARMY to contribute as well.

Shibarium, the blockchain upon which the SHIB Metaverse is being built, is about bringing the power of blockchain to the community, has recently run up against FUD (a crypto term for fear, uncertainty and doubt, usually evoked intentionally in order to put a competitor at a disadvantage) due to a minor mishap with an ID. “We witnessed unnecessary FUD around a small issue where people incorrectly assumed we forked a chain called Rinia. This is completely false,” Kusama says.“Forking is common and encouraged in software but Shib could only utilize an open source chain that is high-quality and able to take the incredible workload that Shibarium will be forced to endure on day one. Therefore, in actuality, Shibarium Technology is built on top of a modified fork of Polygon.” The Polygon network is tried and true, Kusama explained. “The priority is creating a secure, trustworthy and quality foundation for the ShibArmy to build the Shib Metaverse upon. “All coders, developers, marketers, and women led projects must be a core part of this undertaking,” he said.

“Women are powerful influencers in the decentralized community as well as leaders on Shib branded projects such as Shib the Metaverse,” said Jastrow. “At Shib we have a woman’s led group called #shibwomen and we are trying to grow this part of the community through mentorship, positive influence and inclusiveness.”