‘Shib Owes You’: Shiba Inu Team Member Explains Shibarium Recovery Framework

In a year-end letter, Shiba Inu developer Kaal Dhairya spoke about a recovery plan for Shibarium users following the hack incident in September.

Dhairya mentioned “SOU,” which means “Shib Owes You,” a system that intends to make affected Shibarium users whole.

In this system, every affected user has an SOU NFT, which is an on-chain, verifiable record of exactly what the Shiba Inu ecosystem owes them. The SOU is not a promise in a database somewhere but a cryptographic proof that Shibarium users own a claim, recorded permanently on the Ethereum blockchain.

The SOU tracks a principal amount, which is the value still owed to Shibarium users. When payouts happen, the principal goes down, as well as when donations come in from the community. Users will also be able to verify their original claim, what has been received and what is left. The SOUs can also be merged, split or transferred.

Shiba Inu team member sheds light on SOUs

In a tweet, Shiba Inu team member Lucie shares a personal explanation about SOUs. According to Lucie, the “Shib Owes You” has two layers, an official one and another, which is community-powered.

The official layer marks the SOU NFTs on Ethereum, which is the Shiba Inu team system. These NFTs represent what people lost in the Plasma Bridge exploit. In addition, they are on-chain, auditable and dynamic, defining exactly who is owed what. The SOU NFTs on Ethereum, according to Lucie, represent the accounting layers but do not raise money as they track the debt.

The second one, which is the community recovery layer, so far has one project (Woofswap) committed to it. This represents SOU on the BSC chains. Lucie clarifies that this is not a replacement for the NFTs but rather a liquidity and fee generation mechanism. Its role, according to Lucie, is to create volume and generate fees as part of activity geared toward recovery and ecosystem support.

Lucie explains further that the SOU on BSC represents the Shiba Inu community support for recovery. It is not an IOU, nor a claim nor an official SHIB product. Rather, it is a funding rail that can direct trading activity toward donations and rebuilding.

While SOU NFTs on Ethereum are the truth layer, on the BSC chain, it is the liquidity engine; one represents what is owed, while the other helps generate funds.