The popularity of meme tokens exploded in 2021, and Shiba Inu (SHIB) was a front runner. The value of SHIB peaked last October, reaching $0.00008 from merely $0.0000076 in June 2020: that was a gain of more than 1,040 percent.
The extraordinary returns also made many early investors of the project into millionaires. One of the most highlighted trades reported in October revealed that an early anonymous SHIB investor turned $8,000 into $5.7 billion in 400 days, making it the greatest known trade of all time.
But, what is fueling this price surge?
Unlike
Bitcoin
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities.
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities. Read this Term and Ethereum, SHIB falls in the category of a meme token. The project is completely driven by the interest of a community and does not have any real-world applications.
Indeed, the project was introduced in 2020 as ‘Dogecoin killer’, referring to another meme token. SHIB also succeeded to surpass the market cap of Doge briefly, and both of them even became two of the top ten
cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities.
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities. Read this Term in terms of total market cap.
A Speculative Growth
However, Shiba’s speculative demand dropped drastically from the peak, and the token is now trading at $0.000038, almost 53 percent lower than its peak value. But, that does not mean the token is dead. It still holds more than $20.9 billion in total market capitalization, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
So, how the meme token will perform in 2022? Will it witness another upward drag to take its price to another level, or will it vanish eventually?
“Pinpointing a meme coin like Shiba Inu’s trajectory is quite hard to predict due to the ways it has grown,” said Nigel Frith, Lead Analyst at Bitcoinmoney.net.
Despite being very speculative, the Shiba Inu community become very strong. The project even received endorsements from many celebrities and even from billionaire Elon Musk.
“If we remind ourselves, Shiba Inu was somewhat promoted by Elon Musk’s unpredictable tweets, stating that he would be supporting Shiba Inu instead of Dogecoin. This was the catalyst for Shiba Inu’s growth! Other factors are the petition to have the availability of Shiba Inu on the Robinhood platform and the meme coin’s non-fungible token Shiboshis arriving on the NFT marketplace. As we all know, this caused the 50000000% growth which garnered the attention for meme coins in the world of crypto,” Frith added.
For the future growth of the token, however, experts believe that it will follow the overall market trajectory. But a single tweet from prominent personalities can also push the price significantly higher.
“From where I stand, meme coins do not possess actual value,” James Wo, founder and CEO at Digital Finance Group, said. “They utilize the “consensus of a community” to cover the fact that they are created just for the temporary fever of some retail investors making quick cash while whales and influencers take away most of the profits.”
Jahon Jamali, co-founder and Managing Partner at Jahon Jamali, said: “The rise of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu certainly drives home not only the powerful community component of cryptocurrencies but of the importance of interoperability. Dogecoin from a technical standpoint has enjoyed success partly to its ease of use and transactional capability across different blockchains. The DeFi space as a whole exemplifies this, and that has become a core focus of Shiba Inu’s appeal.”
Another factor giving a push to meme token prices is the acceptance of these digital currencies by several retail chains as a payment mode.
Shedding a Zero
The SHIB community is also tapping the popularity of the DeFi ecosystem to the advantage of the project. It is using the Shibaswap token to power its native decentralized exchange. The community has also agreed to a burning mechanism that will take a significant number of SHIB tokens out of circulation.
But the meme token still has to astronomically gain in fiat value to shed another zero from its price. It has to add more than 163 percent to its current market price to reach $0.0001. Though looks hard, such a surge in a short time is not impossible in the wild cryptocurrency market.
“The utility of Shiba Inu is growing, it has been accepted as payments for multiple retailers, which is a great sign of potential growth and sustainability. However, if it were to shed that ‘0’ it would come from the unwavering support from the meme coin’s amassed investors and also Elon Musk further supporting the meme coin and not dropping it,” Frith added.
The Meme Coin Market
“In each bull run or year of the bull run, there is a certain period of time when meme coins will outperform any other asset. We saw this in 2021 and will very likely see it in the upcoming year as well,” CoinLoan founder and CEO, Alex Faliushin explained.
“Since it has a great community behind it and a decent burn mechanism involved, it can definitely go up in value. How much, this is a question everyone in the community would like to know, but it is nearly impossible to answer since it is a highly speculative currency. As mentioned, the value of some of the most popular meme coins will be rising. There will be a lot of hype around other projects too that are looking to replicate the success of the stars, but it is unlikely that there will be many great meme projects. We expect at least a few to be added to the top 100 coins by capitalization since the meme coins have proven to have their own place in the whole ecosystem. The only question is for how long they will be able to stay in such high capitalization, as more and more projects are coming to the ecosystem – only time and market will tell.”
The popularity of meme tokens exploded in 2021, and Shiba Inu (SHIB) was a front runner. The value of SHIB peaked last October, reaching $0.00008 from merely $0.0000076 in June 2020: that was a gain of more than 1,040 percent.
The extraordinary returns also made many early investors of the project into millionaires. One of the most highlighted trades reported in October revealed that an early anonymous SHIB investor turned $8,000 into $5.7 billion in 400 days, making it the greatest known trade of all time.
But, what is fueling this price surge?
Unlike
Bitcoin
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities.
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities. Read this Term and Ethereum, SHIB falls in the category of a meme token. The project is completely driven by the interest of a community and does not have any real-world applications.
Indeed, the project was introduced in 2020 as ‘Dogecoin killer’, referring to another meme token. SHIB also succeeded to surpass the market cap of Doge briefly, and both of them even became two of the top ten
cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities.
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities. Read this Term in terms of total market cap.
A Speculative Growth
However, Shiba’s speculative demand dropped drastically from the peak, and the token is now trading at $0.000038, almost 53 percent lower than its peak value. But, that does not mean the token is dead. It still holds more than $20.9 billion in total market capitalization, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
So, how the meme token will perform in 2022? Will it witness another upward drag to take its price to another level, or will it vanish eventually?
“Pinpointing a meme coin like Shiba Inu’s trajectory is quite hard to predict due to the ways it has grown,” said Nigel Frith, Lead Analyst at Bitcoinmoney.net.
Despite being very speculative, the Shiba Inu community become very strong. The project even received endorsements from many celebrities and even from billionaire Elon Musk.
“If we remind ourselves, Shiba Inu was somewhat promoted by Elon Musk’s unpredictable tweets, stating that he would be supporting Shiba Inu instead of Dogecoin. This was the catalyst for Shiba Inu’s growth! Other factors are the petition to have the availability of Shiba Inu on the Robinhood platform and the meme coin’s non-fungible token Shiboshis arriving on the NFT marketplace. As we all know, this caused the 50000000% growth which garnered the attention for meme coins in the world of crypto,” Frith added.
For the future growth of the token, however, experts believe that it will follow the overall market trajectory. But a single tweet from prominent personalities can also push the price significantly higher.
“From where I stand, meme coins do not possess actual value,” James Wo, founder and CEO at Digital Finance Group, said. “They utilize the “consensus of a community” to cover the fact that they are created just for the temporary fever of some retail investors making quick cash while whales and influencers take away most of the profits.”
Jahon Jamali, co-founder and Managing Partner at Jahon Jamali, said: “The rise of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu certainly drives home not only the powerful community component of cryptocurrencies but of the importance of interoperability. Dogecoin from a technical standpoint has enjoyed success partly to its ease of use and transactional capability across different blockchains. The DeFi space as a whole exemplifies this, and that has become a core focus of Shiba Inu’s appeal.”
Another factor giving a push to meme token prices is the acceptance of these digital currencies by several retail chains as a payment mode.
Shedding a Zero
The SHIB community is also tapping the popularity of the DeFi ecosystem to the advantage of the project. It is using the Shibaswap token to power its native decentralized exchange. The community has also agreed to a burning mechanism that will take a significant number of SHIB tokens out of circulation.
But the meme token still has to astronomically gain in fiat value to shed another zero from its price. It has to add more than 163 percent to its current market price to reach $0.0001. Though looks hard, such a surge in a short time is not impossible in the wild cryptocurrency market.
“The utility of Shiba Inu is growing, it has been accepted as payments for multiple retailers, which is a great sign of potential growth and sustainability. However, if it were to shed that ‘0’ it would come from the unwavering support from the meme coin’s amassed investors and also Elon Musk further supporting the meme coin and not dropping it,” Frith added.
The Meme Coin Market
“In each bull run or year of the bull run, there is a certain period of time when meme coins will outperform any other asset. We saw this in 2021 and will very likely see it in the upcoming year as well,” CoinLoan founder and CEO, Alex Faliushin explained.
“Since it has a great community behind it and a decent burn mechanism involved, it can definitely go up in value. How much, this is a question everyone in the community would like to know, but it is nearly impossible to answer since it is a highly speculative currency. As mentioned, the value of some of the most popular meme coins will be rising. There will be a lot of hype around other projects too that are looking to replicate the success of the stars, but it is unlikely that there will be many great meme projects. We expect at least a few to be added to the top 100 coins by capitalization since the meme coins have proven to have their own place in the whole ecosystem. The only question is for how long they will be able to stay in such high capitalization, as more and more projects are coming to the ecosystem – only time and market will tell.”