SHIB, also known as Shiba Inu, is a cryptocurrency token that has seen tremendous growth since its inception in August 2020. In just over 2 years, SHIB has skyrocketed in value and created massive gains for early investors.
The Origin of SHIB
SHIB was created in August 2020 by an anonymous person or group called Ryoshi. It was supposedly intended to be an experiment in decentralized spontaneous community building. Ryoshi modeled SHIB after Dogecoin, another dog-themed meme coin that experienced high growth.
Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum which have limited supply, Ryoshi made SHIB fully decentralized with a total supply of 1 quadrillion tokens. At launch, 50% of the supply was sent to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, another 40% was locked in Uniswap for liquidity, and the remaining 10% was given to Ryoshi.
SHIB’s Price History
When SHIB first launched in August 2020, it was trading for just a tiny fraction of a penny. In its early days, it was practically worthless with little trading activity.
Its price remained flat at near zero for several months. Then in May 2021, SHIB suddenly exploded in popularity. This was driven by several factors:
- Listing on several top exchanges like Binance and Coinbase
- Vitalik Buterin burning and donating his SHIB holdings
- Increased social media hype and FOMO
This perfect storm caused SHIB’s price to skyrocket. Within a matter of days in May 2021, SHIB’s price went from $0.000001 to $0.00003775, delivering over 37,000% returns for early buyers.
SHIB All-Time High Price
Thanks to the massive rally in May 2021, SHIB hit its current all-time high price on May 10, 2021. On that date, SHIB reached a peak of $0.0000388, according to CoinMarketCap data.
That means at its highest point so far, SHIB was up over 38,800,000% from its original practically worthless price around launch. Any investors who bought SHIB in those early days and sold near the peak would have made once-in-a-lifetime returns.
SHIB Price Today
Since hitting its all-time high in May 2021, SHIB has pulled back significantly. As of October 2022, SHIB is trading around $0.00001077, down about 72% from its peak.
However, despite the pullback, SHIB is still up massively from its early days. Compared to its original essentially zero price at launch, SHIB is currently up around 107,700,000% all-time.
| SHIB Milestone Dates | Price |
|---|---|
| Launch (August 2020) | $0.0000000001 |
| All-Time High (May 10, 2021) | $0.0000388 |
| Current Price (October 2022) | $0.00001077 |
As this table shows, despite declining from its peak, SHIB is still astronomically up from its original price at launch in 2020. An investment of $100 in SHIB during those early days would be worth over $10 million today!
Market Cap and Volume
In addition to its price growth, SHIB has seen tremendous increases in market cap and trading volume indicating growing mainstream adoption.
SHIB’s market capitalization has grown from essentially zero at launch to over $5.7 billion today. It reached an all-time high market cap of $45 billion in May 2021 at the peak of the mania.
Meanwhile, SHIB’s 24-hour trading volume has exploded from nothing to $135 million per day on average currently. At its peak in May 2021, SHIB’s 24-hour volume exceeded $42 billion.
What Drove SHIB’s Growth?
SHIB’s meteoric rise to become a top 20 cryptocurrency by market cap is impressive considering its origins as a meme coin with no real utility. Several factors drove SHIB’s parabolic growth:
- Creative tokenomics – the quadrillion token supply and Vitalik Buterin’s large allocation helped create buzz and FOMO as investors anticipated he would burn his holdings, reducing the circulating supply.
- Listings on major exchanges – getting listed on Coinbase and Binance enabled easy access to buying SHIB for regular investors.
- Speculation – the potential for SHIB to “become the next Dogecoin” and deliver Doge-like returns attracted huge speculation.
- Community – the SHIB army’s grassroots promotion on social media drew awareness and increased adoption.
These factors combined to create the perfect meme coin storm that drove SHIB’s price parabolic. However, critics argue this growth is unsustainable long-term without real utility.
Future Price Predictions
Considering SHIB’s massive volatility and speculative nature, future price predictions vary widely among analysts. Here are some of the forecasts:
- WalletInvestor: $0.000059 by end of 2022, $0.000076 by end of 2023
- CoinPriceForecast: $0.000013 by end of 2022, $0.000018 by mid-2023
- CryptoPredictions: $0.000024 by end of 2022, $0.000061 by end of 2025
Overall, most analysts expect SHIB will continue declining over the short term but potentially rebound in the long run. However, these forecasts are highly speculative. Accurately predicting meme coin prices is nearly impossible and SHIB could realistically trade anywhere from $0.00001 to $0.01 by 2025.
Conclusion
In summary, the data shows SHIB is up a staggering 107,700,000% from its initial practically worthless price at launch in 2020. It hit an all-time high of $0.0000388 in May 2021 which has not been reclaimed since. While SHIB has pulled back significantly from this peak, it is still massively up all time offering life-changing gains for early investors.
Going forward, SHIB’s price remains highly volatile and challenging to predict. It could continue declining short-term if the speculative mania fades. However, the SHIB army community keeps the dream alive that SHIB can make another record-breaking rally at any time and create a new wave of millionaire investors.
