Why is the Shiba Inu coin price up 25%? Crypto games, Ethereum fusion fuel $SHIB
The cold, crypto winter may finally be over for at least one dog-themed coin.
The price of the Shiba Inu coin, which trades as $SHIB, has risen 25% in the past 24 hours, helping it overtake Avalanche to become the world’s 12th most valuable coin with a market cap of $9 billion. The Shiba Inu coin was also the biggest gainer on CoinMarketCap on Monday as of 2pm in Hong Kong.
Shiba Inu’s sudden rise contrasts with its months-long decline that mirrored the broader crypto market slump. Even with the recent rally, the Shiba Inu coin is currently trading at $0.00001630 per coin, down 81% from its record high last October, and down 50% from this year’s peak in March.
Buzz about a new Shiba Inu-focused game is one of the reasons for the coin’s rise. Over the past few days, Shibarmy, self-described Shiba Inu fans, have released early details of a new online game they are developing called Shiba Eternity. Shytoshi Kusama, Shibarmy’s leading influencer, announced the new game earlier this month, and over the weekend, users in Vietnam posted videos of themselves playing the game after developers released it in Vietnam for testing. The game appears to be an online card-based fighting game, similar to blockchain games like Axie Infinity, but the game will be released on mobile before possibly being on the blockchain, according to Kusama.
Some analysts argue that Shiba’s rise may be more related to crypto giant Ethereum, which provides the underlying blockchain for Shiba Inu and related coins such as Bone and Leash. Ethereum developers recently announced that a long-awaited upgrade to the blockchain could arrive as soon as mid-September after passing a major technical test. Ethereum’s price rose 1.6% on Monday, while Dogecoin, another dog-related meme coin on the Ethereum blockchain, rose 2.5% on Monday.
“Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have both broken out over the weekend, clear evidence that the retail investor is back,” Hayden Hughes, CEO of social trading platform Alpha Impact, wrote in a note on Monday.
Whatever the reason, Shibarmy is pleased with the recent bull run.
At the same time, it is important not to read too much into the Shiba Inu’s rise. The Shiba Inu coin is a highly volatile “meme coin” with little underlying value despite its large and enthusiastic following. Some traders cashed out their savings at or near the top of the market and made millions. But others lost their savings on Shiba and other meme coins after the crypto market began to falter earlier this year.
At least some people in the Shibarmy Reddit community warned traders that the coin remains a risky bet despite the current bull run.
“I don’t know what’s going on [right now,] but it appears to be a pump and dump,” wrote one user on Reddit, saying that SHIB’s value could fall as quickly as it rose. “A day that today provides wonderful sales opportunities for many people.”
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