What the Blxck?! | A Meteoric Rise for the Shiba Inus!
Examining the anatomy of the meme coins, and their meteoric rise.
Topic at a Glance…
· Dogecoin ($DOGE) has seen a 1,000% increase in price since the start of the year, up from $0.05 to over $0.50
· Shiba Inu ($SHIB) has seen a 9,000% increase in price since May 1st, up from $0.000002 to over $0.000033
In what appears to be another marker of an ever more volatile economic outlook for the United States and beyond, 2021 has seen a meteoric rise for many altcoins, particularly those of the doge. Propelled by business magnates and spontaneously-combusting online communities, these tokens have attracted many first-time participants to dip their toes into the cryptocurrency markets.
For those of you still uninitiated, you may be asking: what the heck is going on with these dang Shiba Inu memes?!
Dogecoin ($DOGE)
Most popular amongst the meme-coin ecosystem is of course the doge itself: Dogecoin. Fashioning itself as “an open-source peer-to-peer digital currency, favored by Shiba Inus worldwide” and “the fund and friendly internet currency,” Dogecoin is the first cryptocurrency to capture a mainstream proponent: Elon Musk.
The Dogefather has been putting his money where his mouth is, even posting a poll on his Twitter account to gauge public sentiment on Tesla accepting $DOGE as payment for their vehicle. And the crypto-community has offered its resounding support.
His space exploration company, SpaceX, has even accepted payment in Dogecoin for its transport of a small 40-kilogram satellite for the Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) on the Falcon 9 rocket. GEC’s satellite will be using a variety of sensors and cameras to gather information about Earth’s moon. Even Chinese tea company Urban Tea has begun accepting payment in Dogecoin, alongside other cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum!
Shiba Inu ($SHIB)
Following on the coattails of the 2014 Bitcoin clone is the self-proclaimed “Dogecoin Killer,” Shiba Token ($SHIB). Considering itself as an “experiment in decentralized, spontaneous community building,” SHIB is the first official token of the Shiba Inu ecosystem. The project has a few different purported functions, including: a decentralized exchange (ShibaSwap), an artist incubator that appears to be well on its way to an NFT marketplace, and an initiative to help rescue the Shiba Inu dog breed via the Amazon Smile feature.
A fervor has built around the token in the rapidly growing community, driven by a favorable sentiment regarding the 500 trillion $SHIB tokens offered in sacrifice to Vitalik Buterin that have remained untouched since August 2020. It appears that the assumption is that they will stay dormant, keeping the circulating supply at about half the total supply.
$SHIB was listed in the Binance Innovation Zone, which has higher-risk asset trading available, after a meteoric rise from $0.000003 to $0.000013, further pushing the price to an all-time high of $0.000039. The listing on Binance cause the world’s largest exchange to run out of ETH deposit addresses, but the CEO CZ still noted, “No endorsing it. Super high risk. NFA.”
Though the increased exposure of a never-before tapped audience is exciting for the cryptocurrency community, it is incumbent upon us veterans of the industry to make sure that cautionary tales make their way into the mainstream. Even Musk has made a point to advise care for anyone contemplating diving into the market.
One of the main things creating concern around the Shiba Inu project in particular is an eerie similarity with the now defunct Bitconnect ($BCC). For those of you that were not a part of the cryptocurrency scene in 2017, Bitconnect had swollen to a massive $3 billion in market capitalization in the throes of the 2017 cryptocurrency bull run, trading at about $463 per token. Ridiculed at the time amongst crypto-veterans, the platform continued to link in users with promises of absurd daily returns. As the market cooled and users began to try and retrieve their funds, the platform suddenly shut down, with all users locked out of their accounts. By mid-February 2018 the currency had collapsed to just $0.67 per token, with users losing billions.
The lack of any transparent founding member(s) of the Shib Army is worrying, the “Woof-Paper” simply stating: “We were not founded from an existing community, let alone a preassembled team. The brilliant minds behind Shib had never collaborated before. They were a fresh team of developers, designers, moderators, marketers, and shillers.” Coupling that with the fact that a “decentralized exchange” that entices users to stake their tokens is the main project product, there are some glaring holes in the plan. I’d encourage everyone considering investment to read through the “Woof-Paper” for yourself.
As always, nothing from What the Block?! should be construed as financial advice.