A new discussion on X regarding Shiba Inu’s token-burning mechanism emerged after SHIB community member Ed Salomons noted that ShibTorch’s page on the official Shiba Inu website was displaying a “failed to load burn” notification. The section meant to show the total accumulated SHIB for burning also appeared empty, causing confusion among community members.
Technical hurdles at ShibTorch portal
Salomons highlighted that ShibTorch, a Shibarium-based project focused on reducing SHIB supply, was “loading, constantly updating,” and restated that its design aims for every transaction to burn SHIB tokens. However, long-time community member Mazrael responded with an explanation for the missing data: ShibTorch collects BONE from Shibarium transaction fees, converts it to SHIB, and then burns the tokens on Ethereum. The Shibtorch page on Shib.io previously obtained its figures from a third-party indexer, but since this indexing service no longer functions, burn statistics can no longer be displayed on the website.
Mazrael further clarified that the system requires a functioning bridge between Shibarium and Ethereum for ShibTorch to complete burns. Although it continues to collect BONE gas fees, the actual transfer and destruction of SHIB cannot occur while this bridge is paused.
He cited data from Shibwatch, which monitors burn operations, to explain why burning activity is halted. The burn smart contract on Shibarium is programmed to trigger only after 1,000 BONE tokens are amassed, but current figures stand at 371.37 BONE, well below the threshold.
| Required BONE for Burn | Current BONE Collected | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 371.37 | Burn not triggered |
Bridge issues block Ethereum burns
The Ethereum side of the burning mechanism has also stalled. According to Mazrael, the process relies on a function called “exitandburn,” which retrieves SHIB tokens over the bridge’s ERC20 channel. However, after a security incident in 2025, the ‘rootchainmanager’ contract has not permitted ERC20 tokens to leave escrow, stopping SHIB from reaching its intended “dead wallet” on Ethereum.
Mini dictionary: Dead wallet — A crypto wallet with inaccessible private keys, used to burn and permanently remove tokens from circulation.
Mazrael indicated that without reopening the SHIB bridge, attempts to burn more tokens through ShibTorch will fail. He outlined that the intended mechanism involves swapping BONE for SHIB on Shibarium and then moving the SHIB to a dead wallet on Ethereum. Since core infrastructure remains offline, the process is effectively paused.
Burn tracking, statistics, and leading burn sources
With the public burn tracker indexer offline, Mazrael now tracks burn data via ShibWatch, which obtains statistics directly from blockchain contracts. According to this tracker, ShibTorch has burned a total of 69.32 billion SHIB, valued at $1.27 million based on the prices when each burn occurred.
ShibWatch data shows 69.32 billion SHIB has been burned by ShibTorch, with a total value of $1.27 million at the burn dates.
Mazrael described ShibTorch as potentially the most significant source of SHIB token burns following Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s historic transaction in May 2021. During that event, Buterin sent 410.24 trillion SHIB tokens to dead wallets, marking one of the largest token burns in cryptocurrency history.
ShibTorch is currently under maintenance as developers attempt to restore the bridge and related infrastructure, with no timeline yet for the resumption of normal burning operations.
