Shiba Inu lead developer Shytoshi Kusama has released a comprehensive 36-page whitepaper detailing the project's strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence integration. Announced through Bad Idea AI, a Shibarium ecosystem partner, the document signals a fundamental shift from SHIB's meme coin origins toward decentralized AI applications and advanced technological utility.
Kusama, who broke his social media silence in mid-June 2025 to preview this initiative, rebranded July 2025 as "Jul-AI" to emphasize the project's new direction. Marketing lead Lucie confirmed the significance of the development, stating on X: "AI has always been close to my heart... Let's see where this leads. A new season in Days of our SHIB or maybe a whole new show? SHIB CITY - The AI utopia."
Concurrently, SHIB's token burn mechanism accelerated dramatically, with Shibburn reporting a 3,615.38% surge in burn rate over 24 hours, removing 6,328,633 SHIB from circulation. This follows a separate report of an 869.74% daily increase burning 5.9 million SHIB, bringing total burned tokens to over 410.75 trillion.
Market activity reflects renewed investor interest, with SHIB trading at $0.00001490 after a 10% weekly gain and 3% daily increase. Derivatives volume jumped 26.26% to $591.91 million, while open interest rose 12.93% to $289.84 million. Analysts note SHIB is testing key resistance at $0.000015, a level last seen in May 2023.