The $2 trillion crypto economy is impossible to be overlooked and teeming with new updates. The latest to create a buzz is Shiba Inu, a meme coin promoted as the “Dogecoin killer”, soared to record highs over the weekend to become the 11th-biggest cryptocurrency in terms of market value.
According to CoinGecko, the rise was fueled mainly by two reasons. One, there were unconfirmed rumors floating in the crypto world that the coin will soon be listed on the popular stock trading app, Robinhood.
The other reason for its rapid rise was tech billionaire Elon Musk, who tweeted a photograph of the SHIB token going to the Moon. However, the Shiba Inu rally was short-lived.
The token has gained more than 45 million percent in the past year, the site indicated. It later fell about 10% from its all-time high after Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who is a big fan of dogecoin — tweeted that he does not own any shiba coin. Musk’s tweets have frequently moved crypto markets.
Like another quirky digital currency Dogecoin — which is the ninth biggest crypto by market value — shiba coin features the Shiba Inu dog as its mascot. Its meteoric rise has made some investors millionaires overnight. The coin has also won a handful of celebrity backers, from former boy band stars to pro athletes.
Earlier this year, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin made headlines by donating $1 billion worth of shiba coin to a Covid-19 relief fund in India. A Change.org petition urging trading platform Robinhood to list shiba inu coin on site has garnered more than 300,000 signatures.
Nirmal Ranga, Chief Revenue Officer, ZebPay, “Bitcoin is designed to be scarce whereas SHIB is intentionally made in a way that is abundant in nature. The total circulating supply of it is 1 quadrillion. The Shiba Inu token system supports innovative and artistic projects like NFT art incubators. The development of its own decentralized exchange called the ShibaSwap is also in the pipeline, all factors which have been driving the tokens value and interest among traders.
Even though Doge is the oldest memecoin, and still ranks higher in terms of market capitalization, SHIB is making a place for itself currently ranking at 13 with a market capitalization of $15.5bn.
The meme crypto designed on the Ethereum blockchain was trading at $ 0.00004174 and has appreciated by over 40% in the last 24 hours. The token undertook a bullish price trajectory from 15 October and noted higher highs until it reached its ATH at $0.00004450. In addition to that, the surge in volumes that the token has been witnessing can also be attributed to the FOMO that typically arises—as interest peaks, and traders rush to take part in the rally as a means to book profits.
Created by an anonymous name ‘Ryoshi’ in 2020, Shiba Inu token functions on ethereum blockchain. According to its founder, the coin is ‘an experiment in decentralized spontaneous community building.’ Unlike its competitor, dogecoin, which has no cap on a maximum number of units, SHIB can only extend its supply up to 1 quadrillion.
The SHIB white paper lists leaders of international chat rooms, social media influencers, and meme-makers as part of the community behind the digital token’s success.
SHIB is seen as an attractive option for many experienced traders and crypto professionals. Compared to other top cryptocurrencies that cost a fortune, SHIB tokens are very cheap and user-friendly.
It’s trading volume determines if the digital token is going to be a success or not in the future. On its debut day, SHIB has recorded a steady volume of US$1,604,789 compared to other cryptos that record 10s and 100s.
Other popular virtual currencies have also seen explosive growth. Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, hit an all-time high of nearly $67,000 per coin last week, topping the previous record set in April.
Bitcoin prices have surged 50% this month, from just under $44,000 at the end of September. Bitcoin is currently trading at almost $62,000.
The meme-cryptocurrencies have been coming to light since last year, thanks to Elon Musk’s Twitter feed. Although it was dogecoin that made it in the headlines often, Shiba Inu has finally managed to outshine its competitor. Its ShibaSwap decentralized exchange makes it part of the decentralized financial ecosystem on ethereum and allows its users to get certain functionalities like swapping tokens, staking, and fainting yield, that is not allowed in dogecoin.
Despite its rise and fall, its supporters claim that Shiba Inu is more “community-driven” than its counterpart and supports mostly artistic projects like non-fungible token (NFT) art incubators. Some also believe, in a long run, Shiba Inu can change things upside down and that SHIB will join the top 10 cryptocurrencies list in the coming days. We need to watch out this space.
