Shiba Inu (SHIB) review: where and why to buy the coin, 2021 perspectives

At the end of October 2021, after hitting a new ATH, the Shiba Inu (SHIB) coin managed to beat Dogecoin in terms of market cap – $33.3 billion and $32.5 billion respectively. In total, since the beginning of 2021, the asset’s price has grown by more than 4,000%.

According to Coingecko, as of 12th November 2021, SHIB was among the top 15 cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap, while the number of Shib Army community members exceeded 500,000.

What is Shiba Inu (SHIB)

SHIB is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token named after Shiba Inu dogs. On the official website of the project, launched in August 2020, tokens are called “Meme Coins.” And SHIB fans jokingly call it the “Dogecoin killer”.

Shiba founder, someone known as Ryoshi, explained that the team chose Ethereum blockchain for the SHIB token because, unlike most other networks, it is truly decentralised, secure and well-established. According to Ryoshi, Ethereum also allows developers to create free decentralised communities.

Shiba Inu’s whitepaper, jokingly called a “woofpaper”, states that SHIB is an “experiment in decentralised spontaneous community building.” The idea behind Shiba Inu is to launch a cryptocurrency project that is 100% controlled by its community.

Shiba Inu has a growing community of supporters – known as the Shib Army. Token creators estimate that this “Army” already includes more than half a million people. In the whitepaper, developers state that they were inspired by r/WallStreetBets, the Reddit community that is pumping up the share price of almost bankrupt companies, such as GameStop that climbed by more than 1,000% in just two weeks.

The role of Vitalik Buterin in the Shiba Inu project

According to coin creators, the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, is also a member of the Shib Army. Information about him is contained in the white paper of the project.

The document claims that Shiba creators abandoned the practice where developers own team tokens that they can dump on the community. Instead, some 50% of a total of 1 quadrillion SHIB tokens were locked in the Uniswap SHIB/ETH Pool, while ​​the remaining 50% of the total supply were sent to Vitalik Buterin’s wallet. The token’s whitepaper says that like Ryoshi, Vitalik Buterin is a “visionary” and “a close friend of SHIB”. It also states that as long as Vitalik “doesn’t rug” the Shiba Inu team, their token will grow and survive.

However, in May 2021, Vitalik Buterin burned 90% of his Shiba holdings and said he plans to donate the remaining 10% of coins he owns to charity. Therefore, he previously donated Shiba Inu coins worth $1 billion to India’s Crypto Covid Relief Fund, an organisation that fights against coronavirus. This generous gesture affected the price of the coin, resulting in a 50% decrease from the previous ATH.

What is the reason behind Shiba Inu growth

Experts believe that the growth of meme coins is first of all driven by their communities, no matter whether it’s DOGE, SHIB or other joke cryptocurrencies. Influencers and celebrities also play an important role here. In 2021, the SHIB price changed significantly each time Elon Musk tweeted images of his Shiba Inu pet.

However, on 24th October, Musk claimed that he does not own SHIB tokens, and his crypto portfolio includes only BTC, ETH and DOGE.

Vitalik Buterin and, in particular, the hype around his decision to donate tens of trillions of SHIB (10% of the coin’s supply) to charity have also contributed to the popularity of the meme crypto.

According to Google Trends, as of 12th November 2021, SHIB outperforms Dogecoin in terms of search requests. Amid a new price record, Shiba Inu was the most discussed crypto on Twitter during the month of October, leaving bitcoin behind.

The coin’s recent price boom was the result of several factors. The first and foremost is the the launch of the ShibaSwap DEX exchange, which allowed investors to stake their Shiba Inu tokens. According to CoinMarketCap, since its inception in July 2021 and by mid-November, ShibaSwap has managed to enter the top 25 decentralised marketplaces in terms of trading volume and market share of DeFi markets.

By the beginning of November 2021, Shiba Inu’s market capitalisation exceeded $36 billion in just 30 days, according to IntoTheBlock. Amid this growth, ShibaSwap trading volume reached a record $3.9 billion – a 657% increase compared with September.

Another factor that has contributed to the coin’s growth is that a growing number of cryptocurrency exchanges, including EXMO, are listing SHIB tokens.

What is the price of SHIB

Since the beginning of 2021, the price of Shiba Inu has increased by more than 4,000%, reaching a record high on 28th October 2021 – $0.0000877. At the same time, even after reaching an ATH, the token still costs less than 1 cent, which allows investors to buy hundreds of SHIBs at once with minimum investments. For comparison, as of 13th November, DOGE traded at around 26 cents on EXMO.

According to Cryptorank, as of 17th November, there were 497.7 trillion SHIB tokens in circulation, which is 49.77% of the total coin supply.

You can see the current SHIB/USD rate on the interactive chart.

How to buy SHIB

You can buy Shiba Inu with fiat money or with other cryptocurrencies on crypto exchanges. On the EXMO platform, SHIB is traded in pairs with USD, USDT, RUB and UAH.

• SHIB/USD
• SHIB/USDT
• SHIB/UAH
• SHIB/RUB

Shiba Inu prospects: predictions for 2021

In just a few months during 2021, Shiba Inu was listed by several large crypto platforms, including EXMO, which resulted in the asset’s price surge.

Along with crypto platforms, SHIB is also supported by large businesses. On 16th November, Adam Aron, the CEO of the world’s largest movie exhibition company AMC, announced that the company will soon be able to accept Shiba Inu. AMC already accepts BTC, ETH and DOGE for online payments.

Support from such a large stock company will surely have a positive impact on the price of the “meme” token.

Large investors are also interested in the joke cryptocurrency. On 7th November, an unknown crypto whale bought 20 trillion Shiba Inu tokens for $1.13 billion, reported Etherscan. Skeptics say large holders will soon start selling their Shiba holdings, sharply pushing the asset’s price down. However, such a scenario is barely possible due to the lack of liquidity on exchanges.