The Dogecoin knock-off jumped from obscurity and into the limelight in the last 2 weeks. After a meteoric rise, the SHIBA INU price crashed back to earth.
The incredible run of Dogecoin had left investors looking for the next big meme coin. Sticking to the canine theme, attention turned to ‘Dogecoin killer”, Shiba Inu (SHIB).
The token is named after the Japanese dog breed made famous as the face of Doge.
SHIB gained huge popularity in a short space of time, which sent the Shiba Inu price sky-high.
When SHIB started trading on the Binance exchange on May the 10th, even more buyers were dragged in, and the price increased 160% from the previous day. The token traded as high as $0.00003999, which gave it a market cap of over $15 Billion.
One of the positive drivers for the Shiba Inu price was that the creators had seemingly locked up half the supply. This, in theory, would contribute to favorable supply dynamics. Although not really, as there is a maximum total supply of quadrillion tokens. 395 trillion are currently in circulation.
The sheer volume of supply meant that even with the Shiba Inu price at a fraction of a Dollar, a small increase would greatly impact the market cap.
SHIBA INU creator “Ryoshi” announced that he had gifted Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin half of SHIB’s supply. It was a marketing ploy that was soon to backfire spectacularly.
Buterik then announced on May the 12th that he was donating 660 Billion Shiba Inu (Around $1 Billion at the time) to India’s Covid relief effort. This sent the Shiba Inu price sharply lower, erasing billions in market cap.
The token is currently trading at $0.00001735, almost 60% lower than its high of $0.00003999 set earlier in the week.
Investors should be very cautious about dipping their toes into this market in light of recent events. Such a huge increase in available supply is likely to weigh on the Shiba Inu price in the future. I expect Token’s value to continue to erode for some time to come.
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