At the mention of Shiba token (SHIB), we think of “shitcoins”. In China, many crypto users have dubbed it “shibi” (literally shitcoin) because SHIB lacks any hard-core technology or practical application. Moreover, it had also suffered a crisis of confidence. The issuance mechanism (based on ERC20) of SHIB is extremely simple, and many say that it will only take less than a day for programmers to develop its mechanism.

Since the token was launched, the team has been notorious for the constant marketing hypes. Despite this, according to data from Binance, since its launch in August 2020, the SHIB has soared from below $0.00000000001, and peaked at 0.00005 USDT in May 2021, a growth of nearly 50 million times.

On May 12, 2021, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, donated $1 billion worth of SHIB to India to help the country cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, which shattered the team’s belief that the Ethereum founder would keep SHIB. Due to the massive inflow of SHIB into the market, the token price plummeted by 80%. So, how did SHIB manage to recover in October and achieve repeated surges?

01 The biggest reason might be the frequent big trade

In terms of SHIB transactions, Crypto.com, the fourth exchange address on the list of top 1,000 holders, differs from all other exchanges: Almost all of its SHIB transactions are buy-ins.

In addition, the 9^th holder owns over 8.9 trillion SHIB, which was bought at around 14:00 on October 19 in one transaction. The accumulation of this massive amount has started in early October, involving transfers and the mass purchase of tokens by multiple accounts. Later on October 19, the number of these tokens reached 8.9 trillion (equivalent to $200 million), which is unaffordable to the average individual investor.

Although the mass purchase of tokens by whales might be the direct reason behind the price surge of SHIB in October, this is not the full picture.

02 Improving reputation by building an ecosystem

For many people, SHIB’s efforts in building its ecosystem are the fundamental factor that changed their view on the token. As the copycat coin of another copycat coin, SHIB will not gain extensive market recognition simply through a few rounds of surges.

Compared with Dogecoin, SHIB has adopted a more sensible measure, which is to build an ecosystem that covers the trending market segments. It is fair to say that SHIB has had great ambitions since the very beginning. According to the whitepaper released by SHIB, it will issue three types of tokens, namely, SHIB, LEASH, and BONE. In addition to the development of the community-run token SHIB and the DEX ShibaSwap, the team also aims to launch an artist incubator, NFTs, and a play-to-earn game, the likes of which have gone viral.

Right now, we have not heard much about the plan for BONE. Apart from this, the team has offered clear roadmaps for SHI and LEASH, as well as its DEX and NFT undertakings.

As for the SHIB token, the whitepaper made it clear that all trending technologies will be adopted to burn SHIB and drive the SHIB price to $0.01. How did SHIB make it?

1）Introducing a DEX platform to back SHIB with actual value

This July, SHIB launched its DEX platform: ShibaSwap. According to data from Debank, as of October 19, the TVL of ShibaSwap has reached $2.1 billion in merely three months since its launch, ranking 13^th among all DEXs. Backed by ShibaSwap, SHIB is no longer just a copycat coin.

2）SHIB’s NFT reveals the design of LEASH and the SHIB burn

On October 6, SHIB launched its own set of NFT Collectibles featuring 10,000 “lovable creatures” called Shiboshis, which will be released in three rounds: 3,000 (0.1 ETH for each) Shiboshis for the first round, 5,000 (0.2 ETH for each) for the second, and 2,000 (0.3 ETH for each) in the last round. Each time the NFTs are released, they can only be purchased with LEAH during the first 24 hours, and ETH can also be used after this period.

As it turned out, the first 3,000 Shiboshis were sold out in just 35 minutes, which showed admirable design capacities. Along with the introduction of the NFT, the stablecoin LEAH was also launched. LEAH will be a value measure of the NFT platform in the Shiba ecosystem. Moreover, anyone who bought the first 3,000 Shiboshis stands to make 200% returns once all the NFTs are released, which led to the shopping spree.

Apart from this, users can not only sell the Shiboshis they purchased on the secondary market of Opensea but also change its name (the NFT is named as a serial number when first bought). However, each time users try to change the name of their Shiboshis, it will cost $100 worth of SHIB, which will be directly burned instead of going into the market. This complies with its whitepaper: all trending technologies will be adopted to burn SHIB. Other than the NFT series and the incubation of an NFT trading platform, SHIB’s NFT plan also covers a play-to-earn game based on Shiboshis.

In the future, this might be another ace card that will send the price of SHIB and its NFTs soaring.

03

In the crypto industry where miracles may happen at any moment, many investors would rather suffer potential losses than miss out on SHIB. The above factors may explain SHIB’s surge and the change in many investors’ attitude towards it.

Of course, we must also be reminded that, as a start-up project, SHIB might be a bit too ambitious. In addition to the three types of tokens, SHIB also intends to pursue DEX, NFT, NFT trading platforms, and NFT play-to-earn games. Will it be able to achieve sound progress in all these fields? No wonder someone questions whether all the news is simply another marketing hype aimed to increase the token price of SHIB.

How Did SHIB, a Copycat Coin, Grow by 50 Million Times?