SHIB

BONK, PEPE and SHIB are a menace to crypto

Memecoins are a gamble — and they’re almost always scams. What motivates crypto buyers to continue losing their money for bad reasons?

In 2013, the launch of a dog-themed crypto token as a private joke between a couple of software developers was a harmless piece of fun. The fact that Dogecoin (DOGE) has since amassed a market capitalization greater than $13 billion (as of Dec. 13) is beyond the understanding of most investors, but it seems like it’s here to stay. However, the sector that DOGE has inspired is becoming a menace to an industry that needs to evolve.

Memecoins are dangerous. They are dangerous because the large majority of those who put their money into them never see it again; they are dangerous in the way they damage the credibility of the entire cryptocurrency industry; they are dangerous in the way ownership is so highly concentrated, and they are dangerous because they are proliferating.

As of Dec. 13, there are around 1,300 memecoins in circulation with a collective market cap of about $22 billion, a sizable figure. However, look closely at the CoinMarketCap memecoin sector, and you’ll notice that nine of those listing pages contain utterly worthless coins.

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‘I anti-endorse these projects’ — Buterin’s shitcoin war sees him sent another 250K

Earlier this week, the Ethereum co-founder sold $700,000 worth of “shitcoins.”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s latest salvo against “shitcoins” has ended up with him simply being sent more of it.

Only days ago, the Ethereum developer made moves to sell over $700,000 of tokens previously airdropped to him, causing the price of these tokens to fall. 

Buterin has since continued his war on apparent “shitcoins.” In a March 9 post on a small subreddit, Buterin labeled crypto token Bite (BITE) and most of the other coins discussed on the r/Testingtesting62831 subreddit as “shitcoins” that have “no redeeming cultural or moral value, and will probably lose you most of the money you put into them.”

“I anti-endorse these projects to the greatest extent.”

Vitalik Buterin’s full post on the Testingtesting62831 subreddit. Source: Reddit

BITE was one of the tokens Buterin sold in his shitcoin selling spree on March 7, selling 3.4 million BITE for around $9,250, according to PeckShield. 

Buterin’s post was also likely prompted by the huge number of posts pushing the BITE token on the subreddit, which he created back in July 2020 and still moderates.

The post set him up for a wave of trolling, however, with other members of the subreddit doubling down on their shilling and creating a number of memes.

One of the posts purportedly trolling the Ethereum co-founder. Source: Reddit

Buterin was even sent 250,000 BITE soon after making the post. The token doesn’t appear to be listed on many mainstream crypto price tracking sites, but blockchain records show sales hover around $0.011 per token, making the 250,000 sent to Buterin worth approximately $2,750.

A screenshot of transactions associated with one of Buterin’s wallets. Source: Etherscan

Meanwhile, several Twitter accounts claiming to be affiliated with the BITE token and its community have called the mention by Buterin “BULLISH.”

Related: Vitalik Buterin’s philanthropic fund donates 15M USDC to UC San Diego

The Ethereum co-founder had gone on a shitcoin selling spree just two days prior, offloading some $700,000 worth of tokens that were airdropped to him and exchanging them for Ether (ETH).

Buterin initiated a similar offload in May 2021, selling tokens such as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogelon Mars (ELON), causing their prices to tank by 40% and 90%, respectively.

SHIB price preps for 75% boom as Shiba Inu teases L2 blockchain launch

Shiba Inu traders are in FOMO mode with the Shibarium launch, but it might not be the best time to buy SHIB.

Shiba Inu is hoping to become more than just a Dogecoin (DOGE)-inspired memecoin as it comes closer to launching its layer-2 network called, Shibarium. Meanwhile, the Shiba Inu (SHIB) token has emerged as one of the best performers so far in 2023.

SHIB price jumps 60% in 2023

SHIB’s price has rallied nearly 60% year-to-date (YTD) to $0.00001294, its highest since early November 2022.

SHIB/USDT daily price chart. Source: TradingView

The gains started appearing mainly due to favorable macro conditions that prompted similar rallies elsewhere in the crypto market. Nonetheless, the SHIB price rally picked up momentum as investors assessed its announcement of the upcoming beta release of Shibarium.

Shibarium is reportedly a layer-2 network that would run atop the Ethereum blockchain mainnet. In other words, it would enable developers to build and launch decentralized applications while aiming for lower transactional costs and improved network scalability.

The SHIB price is up 25% since Jan. 16, when the Shiba Inu team teased its audience with the Shibarium launch announcement.

Shiba Inu price: Another 75% boom ahead?

Shiba Inu’s rally has made it an excessively bought asset on a daily timeframe, according to its relative strength index (RSI) reading at almost 86 on Jan. 18 — sixteen points above the overbought threshold of 70.

Related: What is ShibaSwap and how does it work?

Ideally, an overbought RSI prompts investors to unload their positions, leading to a price correction. In other words, SHIB risks dropping toward its 200-day exponential moving average, represented by the blue line in the chart below, near $0.00001120.

SHIB/USDT daily price chart. Source: TradingView

However, on a long-term basis, SHIB’s price rally is likely to continue if the bullish reversal pattern on the weekly chart is to be believed.

Dubbed the “falling wedge,” the pattern develops when the price trends lower inside a range defined by two descending, converging trendlines.

It resolves after the price breaks above the upper trendline toward the level at a length equal to the wedge’s maximum height.

SHIB has entered the breakout stage of its falling wedge pattern, as shown below. It now sees an extended upside toward $0.00002063 by March 2023, up 35% from current price levels.

SHIB/USDT weekly price chart featuring falling wedge. Source: TradingView

Alternatively, a potentially bearish scenario would see SHIB falling short of the wedge breakout target if the price reverses from its interim resistance level at the 50-day exponential moving average (the red line) near $0.00001309.

Such a downturn would risk sending SHIB’s price toward the wedge’s upper trendline near $0.00000800, or down 40% from current price levels.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

What is ShibaSwap and how does it work?

ShibaSwap is a decentralized exchange platform launched to expand the utility and capabilities of the SHIB token ecosystem.

ShibaSwap is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform featuring a decentralized exchange (DEX) and passive income-generating services like staking, liquidity pools and yield farming in its ecosystem.

Launched in July 2021, ShibaSwap is a fork of SushiSwap, a popular DEX that is itself a fork of Uniswap (UNI), the world’s leading DEX by volume. But unlike its rivals, ShibaSwap’s core purpose has been mostly boosting the utility of Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens.

What are Shiba Inu tokens?

ShibaSwap uses three primary tokens: SHIB, Doge Killer (LEASH) and Bone (BONE).

Shiba Inu (SHIB)

SHIB is a Dogecoin-inspired memecoin created in August 2020 by the pseudonymous “Ryoshi.”

During its initial coin offering, the founder(s) distributed one quadrillion SHIB, with half allocated to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Later, Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB to an Indian COVID-19 relief fund while sending the rest of the 450 trillion tokens to a dead wallet.

SHIB/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

Meanwhile, the remaining 500 trillion SHIB were locked in Uniswap and the owners discarded the private keys.

Doge Killer (LEASH)

As the name suggests, Doge Killer (LEASH) arrived as a part of SHIB’s effort to knock Dogecoin (DOGE) off its pedestal as the top memecoin by market capitalization. In its earlier days, the token saw a failed 1:1000 peg to the price of DOGE.

LEASH/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

LEASH functions as an ERC-20 token with a fixed supply of 107,647 tokens.

Bone (BONE)

Bone (BONE) serves as a governance token within the ShibaSwap ecosystem. In other words, holding BONE enables users to propose and vote on changes to the ShibaSwap protocol through the Shiba Inu Doggy DAO.

BONE/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

BONE’s maximum supply is 250 million coins.

How does ShibaSwap work?

ShibaSwap enables users to trade supported ERC-20 tokens directly with one another. The DEX’s most liquid tokens are Shiba Inu ecosystem coins, with data showing that BONE and LEASH have the highest trading volumes and order book depths.

Staking (BURY)

Owners of SHIB, LEASH and BONE can stake or BURY their coins into ShibaSwap pools for a specific timeframe to earn pre-determined annual percentage yields (APY). These yields get paid in the wrapped version of the staked tokens. For instance, staking 1 LEASH yields users 1 xLEASH.

ShibaSwap BURY (staking) APY. Source: Official Website

The pools distribute rewards weekly, but users can claim one-third of the amount. The rest of the staked capital gets vested for six months.

Liquidity Pools (DIG)

ShibaSwap grants users trading fee rewards (0.3% per trade) proportional to the liquidity they provide to its coin pairs. The rewards are handed out as Shiba Swap Liquidity Provider (SSLP) tokens are redeemable for BONE tokens whenever the liquidity provider wants. 

Yield Farms (WOOF)

SSLP holders can deposit these tokens to ShibaSwap’s yield farm pools to earn BONE rewards. This reward mechanism is similar to BURY, where users redeem one-third of the rewards instantly but need to lock the rest for six months.

What’s the price in your national currency? Check out our new cryptocurrency calculator

Some ShibaSwap yield farming pools grant rewards directly in Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Dai (DAI), Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC), according to the DEX’s documentation.

Burn Portal

ShibaSwap allows users to voluntarily burn their SHIB holdings, i.e., sending the tokens to a dead address. In return, the platform rewards the users with Ryoshi Token (RYOSHI), an ERC-20 token explicitly created as a burn reward.

NFTs

ShibaSwap also enables the minting, customization and trading of native nonfungible tokens (NFTs) called “Shiboshis.” These 10,000 digital collectibles of the Shiba Inu mascot cartoons will likely be a part of the gaming project called the Shiboshi Game.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Underdog rises: Dogecoin survived carnage in 2022 better than most

DOGE has performed much better than SHIB this year, despite the Shiba Inu community actively working on an L2 network, a metaverse and blockchain games.

Amid the severe crypto downturn in 2022, the price of Dogecoin (DOGE) has held up much better than most of the top assets on the market.

DOGE is the third-best performer in the top ten, having dropped “just” 58% this year, beaten only by XRP (XRP) and BNB (BNB), which saw declines of 57.2% and 53%.

Looking at the top 10 assets in terms of market capitalization as per Crypto Bubbles data, Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA) and Polygon (MATIC) have all shed considerably more: 65.1%, 67.8%, 80.9 and 68.8%, respectively, over the past 12 months.

DOGE also comes in well ahead of other big names in the top 20 such as Polkadot (DOT), Solana (SOL), Uniswap (UNI) and Avalanche (AVAX), which have all plunged, by 84%, 93.8%, 70.3% and 89.9%, respectively.

Asset price nightmare 2022: Crypto Bubbles

Data from Intotheblock (ITB) also has interesting insights, with the majority (54%) of DOGE hodlers currently in the green at the current price of $0.07, while 3% are breaking even and 43% in the red.

ITB’s figures rely on identifying the average cost of token purchases in its tracked wallets and comparing it to the current price of the given asset.

Looking at other assets, ITB data indicates that 46% of BTC holders and 47% of ETH holders are currently in the green at the time of writing, showing the memecoin has performed well despite its volatile history.

DOGE summary: Intotheblock

The strong performance comes despite no significant news for the Dogecoin network or anything in the pipes to justify excitement going forward, barring some recent speculation that DOGE could potentially, possibly, one day be integrated with Elon Musk’s Twitter.

By way of comparison, Ethereum cut its energy consumption rates by 99% this year, with a slew of layer 2 projects helping it to scale. Fundamentals don’t have the power of memes, apparently.

SHIBA INU vs DOGE

However, DOGE’s memecoin competitor Shiba INU (SHIB) has also struggled, despite community efforts this year to build a full-fledged ecosystem consisting of blockchain games, nonfungible tokens and a metaverse platform.

The token is down 76.1% over the past 12 months, with just 14% of hodlers in the green, 4% breaking even and 82% in the red, according to ITB.

Related: The real-life dog behind memecoin DOGE is seriously ill

As it stands, DOGE is the eighth-largest crypto asset in terms of market cap at $10.1 billion, while SHIB sits at No. 17 with $4.8 billion, according to data from CoinGecko.

In some potentially bullish news for the SHIB community, however, pseudonymous lead dev Shytoshi Kusama has hinted that there could be a new partnership in the works relating to the Shibarium project.

Shibarium is an upcoming Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution that will host the ecosystem’s metaverse platform, games and a decentralized exchange.

Shytoshi Kusama’s bio was recently updated to read “WE are not alone” while their location was set to “With a new fren… guess who?.”

This followed up from a Christmas Eve tweet to their 865,400 followers that read:

“Wen Shibarium? Please know it will come very soon*, but not during a crucial time for people to spend with their family (or the resulting New Years party time). Enjoy these next days, next year is an important one for humanity.”


Decentraland’s MANA and Shiba uptake surges year-on-year: eToro

eToro stated that MANA and SHIB saw the biggest surge in hodlers in Q3 2022, posting increases of 437% and 269% apiece compared to Q3 2021.

Increasing interest in the Metaverse has been seen as a reason for Decentraland (MANA) and memecoin Shiba Inu’s (SHIB) outpaced growth on retail trading platform eToro over the past 12 months.

In an Oct. 7 report shared with Cointelegraph, eToro stated that MANA and SHIB saw the biggest year-on-year surge in hodlers in the most recent quarter, rising 437% and 269% apiece compared to Q3 2021.

Other notable hodler increases on the eToro platform included Enjin (ENJ), Polygon (MATIC), and Basic Attention Token (BAT) with increases of 229%, 107% and 107%, respectively. 

eToro crypto market analyst Simon Peters said that the rise of MANA in particular suggests the Metaverse has become a key theme of the crypto market this year despite the bear market:

“The Metaverse has been a major new frontier and that is reflected in the exponential growth in open positions of MANA. Although crypto markets have been difficult in recent months, the fastest risers indicate real interest in some of the most innovative projects in the past year.”

It is also worth noting that while the beloved SHIB is primarily a memecoin, the dog-inspired cryptocurrency gained a new use case in May 2022, allowing hodlers to use the crypto to purchase land in the Shiba metaverse.

The crypto is also involved in an upcoming mobile nonfungible token (NFT) game called Shiba Eternity, which will be available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, and will be compatible with its Shiboshi NFTs.

However, while the two Metaverse-linked tokens saw gains, eToro’s report noted that the top 10 most-held assets on the platform remain unchanged over the last 12 months.

Bitcoin (BTC), Cardano (ADA) and Ether (ETH) take the top three spots, while SHIB is ranked sixth and MANA is ranked tenth.

Related: The feds are coming for the metaverse, from Axie Infinity to Bored Apes

The uptick in Decentraland’s MANA token comes despite Decentraland catalyst nodes monitor on GitHub showing only 467 people online using the platform at the time of writing, while people in the crypto community on Twitter noted there were around 500 yesterday also.

The figures seem low, considering MANA has a market cap of $1.2 billion.

Data from DCL Metrics lists the number of unique visitors to Decentraland at 7,871 as of Oct. 6, which is the highest number so far this month. However, this figure pales in comparison to the 18,000 daily users Decentraland co-founder Ari Meilich, reported back in December 2021.

MANA is currently the forty-sixth largest crypto asset in terms of market capitalization, according to CoinGecko, and its price is down 88.1% to $0.69 since its all-time high of $5.85 on Nov. 25, 2021. Over the past 24 hours, $115.3 million worth of MANA has changed hands.