Meme cash have been a surprisingly profitable area of interest in cryptocurrency, and one token that triggered a tidal wave of curiosity was Shiba Inu (SHIB). Meme cash sometimes provide little to no utility or intrinsic worth to their holders apart from a cute brand and foolish identify, a pattern that Dogecoin pioneered a number of years in the past. Whereas SHIB’s builders and its ‘Shib Military’ neighborhood like to push their token as the subsequent large factor, the truth is that there does not seem a lot of a purpose for it to outlive the subsequent few years with out critical ecosystem and utility growth.
Meme cryptocurrency history began with Dogecoin (DOGE) in 2013 with former Google engineer Jackson Palmer. Bitcoin had lately undergone its first halving event and was experiencing an enormous wave of speculative curiosity. This resulted in dozens of different cryptocurrency blockchains being developed from Bitcoin’s supply code to unravel all of the world’s issues, although most of those functions of cryptocurrency had been ridiculous and doomed to fail (i.e. utilizing Potcoin for marijuana purchases is absurd when money is simpler, safer, and fewer unstable). This was the first cryptocurrency altcoin season, and because of the ridiculousness and self-seriousness of the tasks at the moment, Palmer determined to launch a cryptocurrency that was absurd, ridiculous, ineffective, and a (supposedly) horrible speculative funding: Dogecoin. To everybody’s shock, DOGE has survived the crypto-crucible and stays related at the moment, and no different meme coin has been in a position to overtake it.
Nevertheless, Shiba Inu seemingly got here out of nowhere in 2021 and offered itself as a critical challenger to Dogecoin, even going as far as calling itself the “Dogecoin Killer“. The Shiba Inu ‘Woofpaper’ discusses the 3-token ecosystem of SHIB, LEASH, and BONE tokens, which might be locked within the ShibaSwap decentralized exchange (DEX) to earn crypto rewards, however apart from BONE’s use as a governance token there does not look like every other use for these tokens. Investopedia factors out that whereas Shiba Inu claims to be able to overtaking Dogecoin in market share, and regardless that it truly achieved this for a really temporary second in 2021, it nonetheless lacks any compelling use circumstances that will give it a long-term edge over DOGE. SHIB principally grew to become in style as a consequence of its controversial launch of delivering 50 p.c of its whole token provide to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who proceeded to burn 45 p.c and donated the remaining 5 p.c to charity, which gave super visibility to Shiba Inu.
Will Shiba Inu Ever Dethrone Dogecoin?
DOGE gives even much less alleged utility than SHIB right now, however meme cash have by no means been about utility and have all the time been about speculative hype-waves and memes, and nothing memes tougher than Elon Musk’s Twitter effect on meme coins. Regardless, Shiba Inu has spent the previous 12 months pivoting its picture in direction of extra utility for its neighborhood, however hasn’t manifested something substantial as of but. The ShibaSwap Blog reported in April 2022 the event of a SHIB metaverse, and Shiba Inu has an official NFT assortment that may be purchased on OpenSea, however nonetheless provides little for its customers that would drive demand for the token.
SHIB was constructed on Ethereum and can be utilized in Ethereum’s blockchain smart contracts, however this additionally restricts SHIB’s usefulness to Ethereum’s jaw-droppingly terrible blockchain gasoline charges. In any other case, SHIB is simply one other doge-themed cryptocurrency using on DOGE’s coattails, and like all different dog-coins sees main pumps and dumps in response to Elon Musk’s Twitter exercise.
Whereas Shiba Inu goes a number of additional miles in changing widespread crypto terminology with enjoyable dog-themed terminology and is even constructing a metaverse for its fanatical neighborhood, there is not a lot right now to point that SHIB will ever overtake DOGE once more. Costly JPEGs, yield-farming capabilities, and guarantees of a doge-themed metaverse cannot overtake the Elon Musk impact, and except Shiba Inu can drastically reinvent itself it might not have the ability to overtake the ‘Dogefather’s’ assist for DOGE.
Supply: Investopedia, Shiba Inu Woofpaper, ShibaSwap Blog
