The Dramatic Rise Of Shiba Inu: World’s 9th Biggest Crypto

The Japanese dog breed-inspired cryptocurrency–Shiba Inu has exceeded the market cap of companies like ETSY.

Etsy, Inc. $ETSY: $250.69(3.27%) , Nokia Nokia Corporation $NOK: $5.68(-2.41%) or HP HP Inc. $HPQ: $30.33(-0.39%) . According to CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency ranking website, SHIB is now one among the top ten cryptos regarding market capitalization, ranking, one step ahead of Dogecoin (DOGE). Shiba Inu’s market cap is about $40 billion versus dogecoin’s $39 billion (approximately) as of press time.

The digital token gained about 30% in the last one day. Coingecko data shows. The SHIB to USD rate at the time of writing stands at $7,565 and has increased 34.3% from $56,351,650 since yesterday. SHIB’s last 24 hours trading volume clocked almost $45 billion, up 127%, racing far ahead of DOGE’s $12 billion trading volume as of the time of writing.

This “meme token” has gained a lot of traction from investors, and consequently, it is ruling the number 9 spot among the top cryptocurrencies by market value, despite the price being below 1 cent. It is up more than 150% over the past seven days, on Thursday.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is on an upward course and has increased 998.9% from $6,944,599 in a 30 day period. For many investors, Shiba Inu is an attractive option because of its cheap buying price rates. But it is better to jump on the bandwagon only after weighing the risks.

About Shiba Inu

A pseudonymous founder named Ryoshi founded this “meme token” in 2020. The token has drawn its inspiration from Shiba Inu dogs. The meme coin began as a fun currency which now has been transformed into a decentralized ecosystem. This coin caught the eyeballs very quickly as a community of investors was fascinated by the cute charm of the coin combined with headlines and Tweets from personalities like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin.

This dogecoin spinoff is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, which means it’s created on and hosted by the Ethereum blockchain, instead of its own blockchain.

Ryoshi purposefully decided to host Shiba Inu on Ethereum because it’s “already secure and well-established,” Shiba Inu white paper says, or, as its community refers, “woof paper.” SHIBA INU website says SHIB is the “DOGECOIN KILLER ”.

Shiba Inu is an Ethereum-based peer to Dogecoin’s Srypt-based mining algorithm. Shiba Inu and the SHIB token come from the pack of dog-themed cryptocurrencies, including Baby Dogecoin (BabyDoge), Dogecoin (DOGE), JINDO INU (JIND), Alaska Inu (LAS), and Alaskan Malamute Token (LASM).

In mid-September, Coinbase, the largest US-based crypto exchange, listed Shiba Inu on their platform, which caused a stir and engagement among the investors that resulted in the rise by over 40% in the following two days, making the meme dog token talk of the town.

The surge in meme tokens like dogecoin and Shiba Inu is reminiscent of the GameStop frenzy that happened earlier this year, when an army of Reddit users marched to the video game retailer’s shares, causing huge price fluctuations. In a similar spirit, inexperienced traders have been advancing towards lesser-known cryptocurrencies in the hopes of making large profits.

Shiba Inu is an altcoin, which refers to a digital currency option other than Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency is a volatile and speculative investment in general, but many experts believe altcoins can be even more so.

As per the information provided on the website of CoinGecko, Shiba Inu’s creator claims to not possess any token. The cryptocurrency has a maximum supply of 1 quadrillion, CoinGecko data says. The maximum supply means the total amount of coins that will ever exist in the lifetime of the cryptocurrency. It is similar to fully diluted shares in the stock market.

What is Driving The Record Rally?

The demand from individual investors for a listing of Shiba Inu on the trading platform Robinhood has intensified. Believers in Shiba Inu are leaving no stone unturned in urging Robinhood to list the token. They started a petition on change.org, titled “Kindly request of Robinhood to list Shiba Inu coin!” Which so far has received 3,84,643 signatures.

Robinhood on Tuesday posted disheartening revenue figures, missing analysts’ expectations for the third quarter. The stock tanked by 10.44% during Wednesday’s trading session.

The online brokerage earnings got big support from digital currency trading in the second quarter, with dogecoin contributing 62% of its crypto revenue during the period.

“Looking back at Q2, we saw huge interest in crypto, especially Doge, leading to large numbers of new customers joining the platform and record revenues. In Q3 crypto activity came off record highs, leading to fewer new funded accounts and lower revenue as expected, said Vlad Tenev, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder in the Q3 earnings conference call.

In the conference call with analysts for the Q3 earnings report, Vlad Tenev — Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, addressed the listing of new coins.

He said, “One other thing that we’re mindful of — and I noticed this — I mentioned this earlier in the release. The regulatory environment in terms of new coins and lending products and crypto is uncertain and evolving. And we’re having to clear — carefully evaluate whether we can add new coins in a way that’s safe for customers and in line with regulatory requirements. So, as you probably are aware, the Securities and Exchange Commission, other regulators have raised questions about whether lending and staking features are actually unregistered securities offerings, whether a lot of the coins at — and tokens at other platforms are unregistered securities.

And we feel very, very good about the coins that we’re currently listing on our platform. And for any new coins that we add, we want to feel equal, if not more, good. So, we’re going to be very careful. We’re a regulated entity and we’re hoping to get some clarity soon on coins.”

Cryptocurrencies are highly speculative and volatile, as already mentioned. Bitcoin, which recently hit a record high above $66,000, almost came down to halved in price mid this year after Chinese regulators clamped down on the country’s crypto-industry.