What happened to the Shiba Inu crypto?

During the last major crypto bull run of 2021, Shiba Inu recorded the highest returns among memecoins, thus attracting significant interest. 

But now it seems to interest almost no one. Why? 

To understand the reason, it is necessary to analyze the two periods separately, namely the one around 2021, and the one from 2022 onwards. 

Shiba Inu in 2020

The Shiba Inu SHIB token was created on Ethereum in 2020. 

Initially, it aimed to be an alternative to Dogecoin on Ethereum, since Dogecoin (DOGE) has its own blockchain and there wasn’t one on Ethereum. 

It should be remembered that Dogecoin, the first memecoin ever created (back in 2013), leveraged the popularity of a meme based on an image of a Shiba Inu dog, therefore the reference of SHIB to Dogecoin was practically explicit. 

In 2020 SHIB did not make headlines, and in the crypto market, it did not register any particularly interesting movement.

In 2021, thanks to the promotion by Elon Musk, the price of Dogecoin skyrocketed, rising in a few months from less than 1 cent to over 73 cents. Thanks to this boom, it not only recorded its all-time high, still unbeaten, but even entered the top 10 of the main cryptocurrencies. 

Even today, it is there in eighth place overall, with nearly 40 billion dollars in market capitalization. 

Shiba Inu in 2021

Such a capitalization for a memecoin was excessive, so much so that at a certain point the Dogecoin rally first began to slow down, and then it came to a complete stop. 

At the time, Shiba Inu had a ridiculous market capitalization, thus having much higher growth potential than what had already been reached by Dogecoin. 

And so at a certain point, the greed of speculators began to shift from Dogecoin to Shiba Inu, causing the buying pressure to explode, and consequently the price as well, since the selling pressure was instead very limited. 

Between April and May 2021, while Dogecoin was slowing down and then marking its all-time high before retracing, the price of SHIB suddenly skyrocketed from less than 1 millionth of a dollar to 15 millionths, then further accelerated between September and October, thus reaching the all-time high at 88 millionths of a dollar. 

In other words, it multiplied its market value by almost 100 times in less than a year. 

But then that bubble burst.

Shiba Inu in 2022

Speculative bubbles that inflate in financial markets eventually burst, always. It is often difficult to identify them before they burst, and one never knows precisely when they will burst. 

That a mega speculative bubble had inflated on Shiba Inu in 2021 was clear, but no one knew when it would burst. It began to burst already in November 2021, but it was from May 2022 that the price started to plummet. 

It must be said, however, that it never returned to the starting price, that is, below a millionth of a dollar, but stopped just below 7. 

In 2022, the creators of the crypto project Shiba Inu attempted to leverage its popularity and profits to transform it into something more serious than a mere memecoin token, but in fact, they never succeeded. 

It is true that the project has evolved, and the native chain Shibarium has been released, but in reality, it has never recovered. 

Shiba Inu (SHIB) in recent years

At the beginning of 2024, there was an attempt at a rebound in the price of SHIB. 

In fact, in March it briefly surpassed 35 millionths, but that rebound lasted very little. By September, it had indeed fallen back below 13 millionths.

It is noteworthy, however, that the lows are increasing, as they go from less than 1 millionth of a dollar in 2020 to 7 millionths in 2022/2023, and then to 13 millionths in 2024. 

Additionally, with the Trump-trade at the end of 2024, the price of Shiba Inu returned above 30 millionths, but during 2025 it went back to 13, which is also the current price. 

So with the Trump-trade, it didn’t even manage to rise above the early 2024 peak, and the subsequent retracement brought it back to last year’s lows. 

These are not good signals at all, in a year of substantial crypto bull run like this. 

At this point, it is not only reasonable to imagine that it might still struggle to return to the highs of 2021, but also that there will very likely be other memecoins that will record much greater rallies, due to the usual bubbles that eventually burst.