It might come as a surprise, but the Shiba Inu coin ranked as the most popular cryptocurrency in 2021, according to Coinmarketcap. In other words, Bitcoin, the first crypto to grace the market, came in second with 145 million views which is about 43 million views less than what the Shiba Inu coin got. In the 2021 wrap-up post, Coinmarketcap stated that Shiba Inu was followed by Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Cardano, and Ethereum on the popularity index. It comes as a surprise because Shiba Inu is actually a spin-off of another meme coin. Wondering what the coin has to offer? This article breaks down everything about it.
What is Shiba Inu Coin Cryptocurrency?
The coin crypto Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a dog meme token created in august 2020 to rival Dogecoin by an anonymous person or group dubbed Ryoshi. Meme coins are cryptos that emerge from an internet meme, a certain pop culture, or internet jokes and have humorous characteristics. The coin is named after a Japanese dog breed from the Chubu region, which is the same dog depicted in the Dogecoin symbol. It was developed as an experiment to test what would happen if the local community ran crypto projects 100%. SHIB was the first project to follow this path, enabling everyone to buy crypto from the open market. It also ensured that developers didn’t own the coins, preventing them from dumping the crypto on the community and promoting fair and equal distribution.
As popularly referred to, the dogecoin killer has been designed to be intentionally abundant, unlike bitcoin, which strives to be scarce. It’s compatible with Ethereum wallets such as Metamask and Coinbase since it strives to become compatible with the Ethereum ecosystem, unlike Dogecoin. The number of users has therefore increased over the few months it has existed, crossing the one million holder mark. In fact, on 3rd December 2021, Ask the Doctor, an online medical advisor, announced that it had bought $1.5 million worth of Shiba Inu coin cryptocurrency (approximately Rs. 11.26 crore). This meant that they were preparing to start accepting SHIB as a payment option. US-based movie theatre AMC has also been considering the acceptance of the coin as a payment option. Kraken and Bitpay are some international exchange platforms that listed Shiba Inu coins on their platforms.
How Did Shiba Inu Gain Popularity?
The success experienced by the coin can be partially credited to its supporters who have enthusiastically hyped the meme coin using hashtags such as Shibaswap, Shibainu, Shibarmy, Shibainucoin on social media platforms such as twitter. In just 15 months, the company became the 13th largest crypto with an $18 billion market cap. It has surged over 133% in October, reaching the ultimate high of $0.000088 in just four days.
In April 2021, Elon Musk, a crypto guru and owner of market giant tesla, dubbed himself the “doge father,” encouraging his followers to put their money in the crypto. With Dogecoin growing super-fast, Shiba Inu capitalized on the gap, creating competition. According to Coinmarketgap, SHIB held 1,090,840 wallet addresses and is listed on 447 exchanges worldwide. The sudden price rise can also be attributed to the speculation that the coin will soon be listed on Robinhood, a stable and reliable trading platform, by January 2022.
How does Shiba Inu work?
Shiba Inu is an Ethereum based token compatible with the Ethereum ecosystem. The founder chose Ethereum because it’s well established and secure, allowing SHIB to remain decentralized and accessible to a wide user base. The SHIB ecosystem is divided into three tokens;
- Shiba Inu, which is the project’s namesake. It boasts of 1 quadrillion coins, and Ryoshi claims to have forsaken their entire stake in the crypto coin.
- Leash is the second token that prides itself in 107,646 coins circulating the crypto world.
- Bone is the third and last token which acts as the governance coin. The Shiba Inu army can vote on upcoming projects and proposals based on how many bone tokens they hold. It boasts of 250 million tokens in the system.
SHIB coins are best traded on the coin’s decentralized exchange called Shibaswap. The ecosystem rides itself in the Shiba Inu Incubator, which discovers new artistic talent of the mainstream and the SHIB generated network, Shiboshi, with 10,000 unique NFTs.
Where Can One Purchase Shiba Inu Coin?
Shiba Inu token is traded on crypto trading platforms such as eToro and Coinbase. Crypto is, however, not regulated in some markets, such as the UK, unlike other financial products. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) monitors buying and selling of crypto to prevent money laundering and funding terrorism. This means that if you purchase anything in crypto or put your money in crypto and lose it, you will not recover it.
Will the Shiba Inu coin reach $1 in 2022?
The price of Shiba Inu in India is quite volatile. Crypto prices keep fluctuating, which makes them very volatile. But why you may ask, anything can make the prices change significantly. It can be a simple tweet from Elon Musk or google news. For instance, in early 2021, Musk added the word bitcoin on his Twitter bio, and the price of the crypto increased by a whopping 20%. He didn’t even have to say a word; he just had to add a single word. In August, the price of bitcoin rose again because news had it that Google was going to start allowing crypto adverts. The prices also fall as easily as they rise. In July, the prices took a dip after regulators started going hard on digital currencies. It’s, therefore, crucial to keep checking the prices when you want to trade and keep updated on important events around you.
It’s tough to say where the price will end up in the year due to the volatility of cryptocurrencies. However, the token has previously hit a high of $0.00003641 and has only gone up since then. Things also seem favorable for the coin, as seen from the trend, meaning we can expect good things.
Conclusion
The future looks quite luminous for the Shiba Inu token, given the numbers at the end of 2021. It’s a token everyone needs to take an interest in because we expect it to do even better this year. However, remember the prices of cryptocurrencies are super volatile, meaning they can change in a blink of an eye.
