The Shiba Inu ecosystem marked a significant development milestone as its Shibarium-based utility and governance token, TREAT, celebrated its one-year anniversary on January 17, 2026. The milestone was highlighted by a public announcement from Shiba Inu team member Lucie on social media platform X, which ignited community discussions focused on the token's functional role and the broader adoption of the Shibarium Layer-2 network.
TREAT was launched on January 17, 2025, with a core design focused on utility and governance rather than speculative appeal. The token is integral to the Shiba Inu ecosystem's evolution from its meme coin origins, serving multiple functions including enabling holders to participate in governance votes on ecosystem proposals, facilitating payments, and managing reward distribution systems.
The token is built on and fully integrated with Shibarium, Shiba Inu's Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain, which emphasizes faster transactions, lower fees, enhanced privacy features, and improved scalability. This integration positions TREAT as a central component in supporting a decentralized framework for applications across finance, governance, and on-chain content creation.
Despite the celebratory milestone and ongoing development activity, the token faced concurrent market pressure. On the anniversary date, TREAT traded at $0.0001646, reflecting a 5.31% decline over the preceding 24 hours. Analysts and community members attributed this price movement to broader negative trends across the cryptocurrency market, with many digital assets experiencing pullbacks, rather than internal setbacks specific to the Shiba Inu project.
The broader Shiba Inu token ecosystem, including SHIB, also faced declines, with SHIB falling from $0.00001017 to $0.00000815 within a week. The community reaction to the TREAT anniversary notably shifted the narrative toward long-term sustainability, ecosystem cohesion, and functional maturity, with discussions emphasizing governance participation and network stability over short-term price excitement. Developers continue to signal more features for Shibarium, with TREAT expected to remain a key structural element as the multi-token system—comprising SHIB, BONE, LEASH, and TREAT—continues to mature.
