Shiba Inu is a meme-inspired cryptocurrency that has seen huge price fluctuations since its creation in 2020. After rising over 400,000,000% in 2021, SHIB has declined significantly from its all-time high. This has led many investors to wonder if Shiba Inu will ever regain its former highs.
In this article, we’ll examine the factors that could influence SHIB’s future price action. We’ll look at technical analysis, on-chain metrics, developer activity, exchange listings, and broader crypto market conditions. While the future is inherently unpredictable, analyzing these key factors can give us clues about SHIB’s potential going forward.
What is Shiba Inu?
Shiba Inu (SHIB) is an ERC-20 token that was created anonymously in August 2020 under the pseudonym “Ryoshi.” Inspired by the Dogecoin meme coin, SHIB brands itself as a “Dogecoin killer” and aims to surpass DOGE in market capitalization.
SHIB runs on the Ethereum blockchain and has a total supply of 1 quadrillion tokens. 50% of the supply was sent to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin at launch, while the other 50% was locked into Uniswap for liquidity.
The Shiba Inu ecosystem also contains two other tokens:
– Leash (LEASH) – 107,646 total supply
– Bone (BONE) – 250,000,000 total supply
These 3 tokens together form the basis of ShibaSwap, Shiba Inu’s decentralized exchange and liquidity platform.
In May 2021, Buterin burned 90% of his SHIB holdings, removing 410 trillion SHIB from circulation and causing a major price rally. SHIB is now down about 90% from its all-time high.
Shiba Inu Price History
| Date | Price |
|---|---|
| August 2020 | $0.0000000001 |
| October 2020 | $0.0000000026 |
| May 2021 | $0.000037 |
| October 2021 (ATH) | $0.000088 |
| February 2023 | $0.000009 |
As the table shows, SHIB saw tremendous growth throughout 2021, rallying from $0.0000000001 to $0.000088 at its peak – a gain of over 400,000,000%.
However, the coin has declined substantially since then. It currently trades around $0.000009, down about 90% from its all-time high.
This meteoric rise and subsequent crash has prompted debate about SHIB’s future outlook. Could it once again see parabolic gains, or will it continue to decline? Let’s analyze some of the key factors.
Technical Analysis
From a technical perspective, SHIB is still in a clear downtrend on the daily and weekly charts. It continues trading below its 20, 50, and 200-day exponential moving averages, demonstrating consistent downward momentum.
SHIB has struggled to break out above any key resistance levels, consistently making lower highs over the past year. The next key resistance level sits at $0.000013.
Looking at common indicators like the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), SHIB shows no clear signs of forming a bottom yet.
However, one potentially positive sign is that trading volumes have picked up recently as the price consolidates between $0.000007-0.000010. This could indicate accumulation by investors ahead of a trend change. But clear upside confirmation is still needed.
Overall, the technical picture remains quite poor for SHIB currently. A move above $0.000013 would be the first sign of a recovery, but SHIB remains deep in bear market territory for now.
On-Chain Metrics
Analyzing on-chain data can also give clues about investor activity and sentiment around a cryptocurrency. Here are some key on-chain metrics for SHIB:
– Number of addresses holding SHIB: 1,174,009
– Amount of SHIB held by top 10 addresses: 36.7%
– Number of transactions per day: 70,000
– Number of active addresses per month: 65,000
The number of unique addresses holding SHIB has essentially flatlined over the past year, indicating minimal new interest in the project. The top 10 addresses hold over a third of the total supply, indicating high centralization.
Daily transaction counts and active addresses have also declined substantially from the 2021 mania stages. This on-chain data paints a picture of a project that saw a massive spike in interest and activity in 2021, but has since stagnated.
Without renewed growth in on-chain activity, it is difficult to make a compelling case for a significant SHIB price recovery. However, if transaction volumes and user growth do begin accelerating again, it could foreshadow a reversal.
Development Activity
In terms of development, the pseudonymous Shiba Inu developer team continues working on the Shibarium Layer 2 scaling solution using the Bone token. This would help improve SHIB’s transaction speeds and reduce fees.
The developers have provided updates on testing Shibarium using a private blockchain. However, an official public launch date has not yet been set. Progress seems slow but ongoing.
Additionally, the team released the long-awaited Shiba Eternity mobile game in October 2022, allowing users to “play to earn” SHIB and BONE tokens. The initial launch was met with lackluster user interest, but future iterations could improve gameplay and adoption.
While the Shiba Inu ecosystem continues evolving, the development roadmap lacks clear short and medium-term milestones and goals. This makes it difficult to analyze the direct impact new products and features could have on the SHIB price.
More concrete developmental progress will be required to substantiate any major price gains. But work does seem to be steadily advancing behind the scenes.
Exchange Listings
Exchange listings are often powerful price catalysts for cryptocurrencies, exposing them to new pools of investors. SHIB is already listed on most top platforms like Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, and Huobi.
While moins significant listings trickle in, there does not appear to be any major exchange listings imminent that could strongly boost buying activity and volumes. Robinhood is the most obvious remaining listing that could have an impact.
But without additional tier 1 exchange listings, it may be difficult for SHIB to capture investor interest outside of its existing following. New high-profile listings could change this equation and enable new surges in trading activity.
Crypto Market Cycles
Like most altcoins, SHIB’s price is heavily dependent on broader market conditions and cycles. When the total crypto market capitalization is in an uptrend, speculative assets like SHIB tend to rise the most.
But during bear markets, they often decline by 90% or more – as has occurred over the past year. Until the crypto market moves back into another bullish cycle, it will be an uphill battle for SHIB to regain its previous highs.
Bitcoin often leads these market cycles, so when its price begins putting in clearly higher highs and higher lows, it could signal a macro reversal. This could pave the way for a broader altcoin resurgence. But for now, the crypto market remains stuck in consolidation mode awaiting its next trending move.
Conclusion
Although the future is impossible to predict, analyzing SHIB across these key dimensions provides a clearer picture of the hurdles ahead:
– Technical analysis shows SHIB remains in a decisive downtrend with no clear reversal signals yet. It must break key resistance at $0.000013 to begin changing the trend.
– On-chain data indicates declining network usage and interest over the past year. Renewed growth in transactions and active addresses would be positive signs.
– Development continues steadily but slowly, with no major updates that could strongly impact price in the short term.
– Few expected exchange listings could expose SHIB to new investor pools in the near future. Robinhood listing remains the holy grail.
– The crypto market cycle remains the overarching factor dictating SHIB’s outlook. Until Bitcoin and major altcoins put in a definitive bottom and reversal, headwinds persist for SHIB.
In summary, while SHIB has the potential to ride renewed crypto bull market momentum if development continues, a variety of factors indicate its massive 2021 gains appear mostly speculative mania-driven.
Technicals remain in downtrends, on-chain activity is declining, exchange listings are limited, and the crypto market cycle has not yet reversed. As such, in the short to mid-term, it seems unlikely that SHIB will return to its all-time highs absent a fundamental shift across these key dimensions. But crypto can always surprise, so monitoring for positive momentum changes across these factors is prudent.