Shiba Inu makes 50% jump to record, becoming 11th-biggest crypto coin

Shiba Inu is gradually taking center stage among other memecoins. SHIB was up 50% in the 24 hours on Sunday and reached a record earlier in the day, becoming the 11th-biggest cryptocurrency by market value. The speculations, media, and buzz surrounding crypto is adding to its surge.

Shiba Inu (SHIB), the self-proclaimed Dogecoin killer, tapped lifetime highs on Sunday. The Shiba Inu coin traded at $0.0000455 at 11:20 UTC, topping the previous record price of $0.0000388 reached on May 10, according to data source Messari.

Prices for the meme token have risen by nearly 50% in the 24 hours, extending the month-to-date gain to almost 500% and becoming the 11th most valuable cryptoasset by market cap.

(Source: One-Month SHIB-USD Price Chart (FTX) by TradingView )

A petition on Change.org imploring Robinhood to list SHIB on its platform has garnered almost 300,000 signatures. The token has gained more than 40 million percent in the past year.

“Memes have value and have been an investible thesis in 2021,” Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at crypto-derivatives exchange FTX, said Sunday. “Lower dollar-price tokens are attractive to retail” because investors can still buy more than 20,000 SHIB for $1, he added.

Shiba Inu was founded in 2020 by an anonymous person, going by the name Ryoshi. The coin’s website refers to it as “a decentralized meme token that evolved into a vibrant ecosystem.”

It appears to have been made in the vein of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke in 2013, and also has a Shiba Inu theme, fashioned after the Japanese dog breed. Dogecoin has since become a popular token that’s used for payments by some sports teams, AMC theaters, and others.

Dogecoin has also gained in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Its market value is about $34 billion, while Shiba Inu’s is around $21 billion. However, both can be quite volatile.

Crypto markets are very dependent on momentum. In case Shiba Inu continues to move higher at a robust pace, a switch from Dogecoin to Shiba Inu will be almost inevitable, providing additional support to Shiba Inu. It remains to be seen whether there is enough space for two “dog coins” in the top-10, so Dogecoin bulls should be on high alert if Shiba Inu continues to rally.