11 min readThe Cryptocurrency market has seen many ‘rising star’ tokens and incredible performers. Among the vast majority, meme coins have earned a special place.
During the historical 2021 Crypto rally, the world was widely introduced to a new potential Dogecoin killer – Shib (Shiba Inu).
Reaching a colossal market capitalization of $43.51B, Shiba Inu’s price skyrocketed by nearly 1000%+ making it the second largest meme token and a rival for Dogecoin.
An array of decentralized finance solutions, a huge community and a rich development road map strengthened its position even more.
Regardless of the success and its adoption by the masses, a subsequent global market downward trend wrecked the price of Shibu Inu along with other coins.
And once the hype surrounding the meme coin subsided, many investors began speculating, whether “Shiba Inu dead” status is real or not.
Shiba Inu: a quick overview
At first seen nothing more than a simple joke, Shiba Inu did not declare any important developments or boast as a serious project that could potentially gain significant momentum and reach a competitive market position.
However, after its launch in August 2020, the meme coin project quickly surpassed the status of a joke and embarked on a journey to develop various DeFi solutions and features within its ecosystem.
This served as an accelerator, adding utility and value to the token, which brought an enormous community together.
Origins and rise to fame
The fundamentals of the Shiba Inu ecosystem were set out in the original ‘Woof paper’, a playful alternative name for the well-known ‘White paper’, by a group of anonymous individuals collectively know as Ryoshi, and posted publicly on the Shiba Inu’s official website ShibaToken.com.
In consonance with the white paper document, Shiba Inu was developed with the essential goal to experiment in decentralised spontaneous community building.
The creators believed that the power of collective decentralisation can establish a more solid foundation for a project that any centralised team.
Shiba Inu was constructed based on the Ethereum blockchain which made it secure, accessible, easy to adopt and utilise.
This along with the innovative experiment to unite the Crypto community around a meme coin with no obligations to compete with market leaders made it extremely popular.
A constantly growing community counting over 500,000 active user drove its success and provided necessary support to ensure further developments of its ecosystem, including ShibaSwap, Shiba Inu Incubator and Shiboshis – non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Current market position
After a series of price corrections during the global Cryptocurrency winter and a steep dip in value, plummeting nearly 90% from its all-time high, Shiba Inu has remarkably retained its well-deserved top-ranking position.
This is not only evident among other meme coins but also within the global market rating.
Placing 19th just below Litecoin, Shiba Inu closes the list of top 20 coins on the market with an astonishing market cap of $4.87B and a daily trading volume of $126M.
This position on the market is quite remarkable considering the staggering circulating supply of 589T Shib tokens.
Moreover, Shiba Inu’s utility has not lost its use, if not gained greater value, as over $1.5B worth of coins remain locked in decentralised finance apps. Indicating that Shib investors continue their contribution to the network and to the well being of this digital asset.
The debate: Is Shiba Inu really dead?
In the light of Shiba Inu’s decline many began to hesitate their investment decisions towards this asset. Disregarding sustainable performance, some consider Shib dead, lacking the required recourses to recover from the downfall or promise anything tangible in the future.
Nonetheless, Shib community stays strong and in intact despite the negative investor sentiment. The dedication and support of enthusiasts and traders across the Crypto space counterweight the fatalism, while the debate on the status of Shiba Inu presses on.
Arguments for the ‘dead’ status
Like any other project, Shiba Inu has a number of downsides and deficiencies that could cause serious damage to its ecosystem and potentially halt its future development, depreciating its value and utility. Here are just a few factors, many consider hazardous:
- Remaining coin supply. Shiba Inu has an astounding circulating supply of 589T tokens. The enormous amount poses a serious threat for Shib to ever pick up a greater value again as supply to demand ratio is out of proportion.In order to handle this issue the project has launched its own burn portal. Since 2020 a total of 400T coins have been burned to counter the imbalance, but as of today a feasible result has not been achieved and it is yet to be determined if it ever will.
- Overwhelming competition. Shib is just one of 10,000 other Cryptocurrencies available on the market. Therefore competition presses hard, like on any other asset. But the fact that Dogecoin leads the meme coin rase, many prefer it over Shiba Inu and that multiplies the effect.Moreover, well-established coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum always attract the majority of investors, making it even harder for this meme coin to compete and offer something more appealing to be invested in. Amount of available investors has also decreased as a result of the Crypto winter.
- Slow and lacking development. The blockchain technology is synonymous to innovation and providing solutions. This means that any token, that seeks to perform consistently well and promising, must provide its users with technological advancements.Unfortunately the Shib project is falling behind the development pace a top ranking coin is expected of. This makes investors switch their attention to faster and better performing assets, while the meme coin resumes to offer a more primitive experience.
Counterarguments
On the other hand, Shiba Inu has numerous positive sides that play an important role in its positioning on the market.
Counterpoints that highlight its strong sides and make it stand out as a perspective coin among other assets. Here are just few of them:
- Community. Shiba Inu has a truly passionate, dedicated and a strong community unlike any other in the Crypto space. Besides the huge numbers of followers on various social media channels, the Shib community is engaged which makes its a valuable one.It is worth the mention, that such figures like Elon Musk or Mark Cuban acknowledge the meme coin and have made several mentions about it in the past. Such attention has a direct affect on its value and the amount of investors who eventually show their interest to it.
- A deflationary Cryptocurrency. Shiba Inu is a deflationary Cryptocurrency asset that supports a burning mechanism each time someone would buy Shiba Inu or sell it on ShibaSwap. This mechanism burns tokens when transactions are executed.Decreasing the amount of Shiba Inu coins allows the project to reduce the supply and thus natively increase the demand. In the long run, this approach can ensure the growth of Shiba Inu’s price on the market.
- Strong competitor. Shiba Inu was created as a counterpart of Dogecoin, yet never had a fundamental goal to outrun it. On the contrary, its primary purpose was an experiment to build an active community in which it succeeded.The success lead to a wide adoption among investors, making it a serious rival to the first meme coin, earning it the name of a ‘Dogecoin killer’. And even though Shiba Inu is just a few billion behind Dogecoin by market cap, it has the potential to claim the throne of a King of all meme coins.
Future outlook: Shiba Inu’s potential and challenges
Shiba Inu has the capability to attract new Crypto investors. This ability comes not only from a positive reaction to current market conditions and corresponding recent price movements.
It also lies within the scope of development prospects.
However with growth come new difficulties and obstacles which Shiba, as a relatively new project, is yet to face and overcome.
Various factors can affect a project and its development, and Shiba Inu is not an exception to this rule, regardless of its top rank and adoption rates.
Opportunities for growth
The Shiba project has out set the development and creation of the Layer 2 network called Shibarium. This blockchain protocol will allow the project to solve congestion and the high gas fees issues that plagued the Ethereum chain and in this relation Shiba Inu’s ecosystem.
Along with that, it will allow to power governance, platfrom’s DEX and help develop such ambitions projects like the Shiba.io mateverse.
It is still unclear how exactly these plans will come into motion, but this will flag a new step towards real world applications of the Shiba utility.
Existing and emerging challenges
One of the biggest dangers to the Cryptocurrency market and digital assets like the Shiba Inu coin are regulatory changes and increasing Federal interests rates.
Aggressive spikes affect Crypto prices negatively resulting in sudden drops and subsequent losses among investors.
Along with many other Cryptocurrencies, Shiba Inu was affected by the notorious series of Federal Reserve announcements back in 2021 which lead to its crash, depleting its value and scaring away potential investors.
Market forecasts: expert opinions
Shib price prediction is generally positive yet very controversial, as various sources set forth contrasting opinions about Shiba Inu’s future movements.
According to Coincodex, price of Shiba Inu is bound to skyrocket by late 2023, calculating a total of 114%+ by Q1 of 2024, granted that negative news will not take their toll, closing at $0.00001563.
On the other hand, Tradersunion share less optimistic price predictions, also expecting the token to move upwards yet in a more conservative pace, finishing the 2023 with a $0.000008036 per token.
Conclusion
Shiba Inu started off as meme coin with an experiment laid in the foundation of its white paper back in August 2020.
Over the years it exceptional performance was driven by support of thousands of investors and enthusiasts.
Along with increased value, Shiba gained utility within DeFi applications and motived the development team to push towards further innovations and solutions.
This combination of historical milestones ensured its sustainability and its ongoing one-way evolution from a meme coin.
Will Shiba Inu go back up?
Technical analysts carefully watching the price movements of Shib predict a descending triangle which could likely indicated to a subsequent upward trend if the coin follows the pattern in the future.
While this is a mere prediction, you must always conduct personal research, apply best practises when trading and rely on a well though out and weighted strategy that includes proper risk management.
Is the Shiba coin dead?
Certainly the Shiba Inu project and its native asset are by far not dead. A huge contribution to its well being is made by the massive community and the support it provides.
The sustainability of Shiba Inu has a proven track record. The graduation of Shiba from the initial 'Woof paper' into a feasible utility token reserved it a place among other essential digital assets.
Will Shiba Inu coin reach $1?
Considering the technical deficiencies of Shiba Inu and the current market cycle, a $1 benchmark is likely an impossible scenario for the coin in the near future.
However a significant decrease of the circulating supply of the coin may have a serious impact on its price and bring it closer to the expected milestone.
Author
Risk Disclaimer
