Before investing in the meme coin, investors should understand the pros and cons of buying in Shiba Inu.
Shiba Inu is a decentralised meme token that evolved into an ecosystem.
It's the first community-led crypto network without direct leadership. The founder remains anonymous but is known as Ryoshi, and the native token is SHIB, an ERC-20 token powered by Ethereum on the Ethereum network.
The ShibArmy runs the Shiba Inu community and wants to create a decentralised global financial standard. On the ShibArmy hit list, they appear to want to take down Dogecoin (DOGE) for whatever reason. Consequently, Shiba Inu became known as the "Dogecoin Killer."
In October 2021, Shiba Inu (SHIB) shoved Dogecoin (DOGE) off the #9 position on CoinMarketCap, a site that lists over 17,000 cryptos. But, within a couple of days, due to a crypto whale moving $3 billion worth of SHIB, Shiba Inu lost its market gain and was slapped back into place by Dogecoin (DOGE).
Today, SHIB sits at #14, just four spots behind Dogecoin (DOGE).
Should you buy Shiba Inu? What are the pros and cons? Is it worth investing in Shiba Inu? The move by the crypto whale caused a drop in confidence for Shiba Inu, as investors became concerned about other large SHIB holders cashing out their tokens.
By the end of 2021, Shiba Inu (SHIB) had seen spectacular gains of 23,100,000%, which stimulated a lot of interest in this dog-themed meme token.
If you invested $100 in SHIB tokens in August 2020, by October 2021, you'd have $12.7 million worth of SHIB. But were these gains a one-off? Can Shiba Inu (SHIB) once again see the sorts of price movement of crypto investors dreams?
Is Shiba Inu (SHIB) the next Dogecoin (DOGE)?
The Shiba Inu gains were mind-boggling and undoubtedly set off a buying frenzy from investors struck by FOMO (fear of missing out).
There's been considerable hype around the Shiba Inu project, but it's essential for any crypto investor not to be swayed by hype. Instead, it's best to be aware of the pros and cons of investing in Shiba Inu (SHIB) before you part with your money.
When investing in crypto, timing is everything. The experienced crypto investors wait for the optimum time to buy Shiba Inu (SHIB) at the right price.
This post looks at five pros of buying Shiba Inu (SHIB) and five cons of buying Shiba Inu (SHIB). In conclusion, you can use these facts to answer your question "Is it worth buying Shiba Inu (SHIB)?"
Pro #1: Shiba Inu Has Built A Valuable Brand
There are thousands of cryptocurrencies on the market and each week this list grows, but most of these cryptos will likely end up worthless tokens that never gain traction.
A crypto network that knows how to market its brand, and has the technological function, will rise above the mediocre cryptos with little to no utility.
Shiba Inu whipped up a frenzy of hype around their dog-themed, friendly meme brand. They have attracted a large and loyal following with over 1 million ShibArmy members and more than 600k followers on social media across several platforms:
- Reddit: Shiba Inu army community
- Twitter: Shiba Inu Twitter
- Facebook private group: Facebook Shibatoken Community
- Discord: Official Shibatoken Community
- Instagram: Official Shibatoken channel
- Telegram: Prescreen for ShibaSwap
So, Shiba Inu is trending on social media. But is that enough to guarantee a future in the cryptocurrency world? Shiba Inu has no real technological advantage over other cryptos, yet it's almost in the top ten listed cryptocurrencies globally.
If that doesn't prove effective branding, nothing will. If Shiba Inu continues to market their brand and increase their followers, the crypto token could last.
But, what better improves the chances of continued success is increased adoption by exchanges and merchants. A while back, rumours circulated that Robinhood crypto exchange planned to add SHIB to its list of cryptos for buying, selling and trading. It's a hugely popular platform for crypto traders due to zero fees. More on that later.
Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Con #1: Shiba Inu (SHIB) Has Extreme Volatility
The crypto market is volatile, which can work in investors favour or can lead to significant losses. In the last crypto market crash, most crypto prices fell by over 50%, wiping out most of the gains accrued for the last months of 2021.
Shiba Inu (SHIB), with spectacular gains in less than a year, could be a crypto investor's dream, as long as they are on the right side of the trade, of course.
A primary concern to factor in for Shiba Inu (SHIB) investing is to check the holding time for investors of a crypto token before selling. The cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, said the median hold time for SHIB tokens is between 10-13 days. Compared to other listed cryptocurrencies, the median hold time for SHIB is dismally short.
For example
- Cardano (ADA) – 68 days
- Ethereum (ETH) – 79 days
- Litecoin (LTC) – 97 days
The question is, why are SHIB investors not holding on to the tokens? Are they concerned about the volatility of Shiba Inu? Are people losing confidence in Shiba Inu (SHIB)?
This data is especially concerning because SHIB is a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus, which means that SHIB holders can make money from staking their coins. The expectation for SHIB median hold times is to increase significantly, especially with the launch of ShibaSwap. But it isn't the case so far.
If you want to buy Shiba Inu (SHIB), consider what could happen if investors started pulling their SHIB out of the market. The price of SHIB has held relatively consistently for a few weeks, but one big sell-off could plunge the token into a downward spiral.
Pro #2: The ShibaSwap Platform
In July 2021, Shiba Inu launched ShibaSwap, a decentralised exchange for peer-to-peer transactions so that users can trade cryptos without the need for an intermediary.
Two other cryptos form the Shiba Inu ecosystem
- BONE – BONE token holders have voting rights on essential Shiba Inu matters. It has a limited supply of 250,000,000 tokens. When you own BONE tokens, you have voting rights on anything meaningful for Shiba Inu. The more BONE tokens you have, the greater the weight of your vote.
- LEASH – is limited to 100,000 tokens. LEASH is an independent ERC-20 token.
ShibaSwap users stake SHIB tokens for BONES for generating yield, much like interest on a savings account with a centralised bank. Users can track returns via a "bonefolio" and can trade over 10,000 non-fungible, dog-themed tokens.
Shiba Inu are confident that the BONE token will take Decentralised finance (DeFi) to the next level.
The ShibaSwap launch added a new dimension to the Shiba Inu network. If it becomes widespread, and there's no reason for it not to, it could create further price gains for SHIB.
Con #2: Lack Of Real-World Utility
The success of Shiba Inu has primarily been due to investors wishing to capitalise on the spectacular gains this year. But, outside of a crypto exchange, Shiba Inu has no real use for investors.
To date, only around one hundred merchants globally accept Shiba Inu as payment (Cryptwerk). Of this one-hundred, most are obscure, crypto-themed businesses.
Shiba Inu's fees, transaction speeds and structure are no better than thousands of other cryptos.
With a massive supply of 1 quadrillion coins, price increases for Shiba Inu (SHIB) may be limited. Compared with Bitcoin (BTC), for example, with an overall supply of 21 million coins, it's easy to work out that Shiba Inu is highly unlikely ever to see the high price points of other popular cryptos with less supply and more functional utility.
If it all comes down to branding, at some point, Shiba Inu could fade into obscurity.
Pro #3: Shiba Inu's Price Point Is Low
Most people missed the Bitcoin (BTC) gravy train and can no longer consider investing in Bitcoin (BTC) because of the high price point. The price of Ethereum is over $1.3k, which is still too much of a risk for small investors, regardless of Ethereum's future potential.
Even though Shiba Inu made gains of over 647,000%, the price is still affordable for the small investor. Today's price is a mere $0.00001, which means a reasonable investment for most people.
For $100, you can buy 10,000,000 SHIB tokens. Even for a mere $10, that gets you 1,000,000 SHIB tokens.
If Shiba Inu makes gains over the next year or so, you've hit the jackpot for your investment. If it goes belly-up, the losses aren't going to dent your bank balance.
The crypto whale we mentioned earlier spent $3,400 on SHIB tokens and returned a life-changing $3 billion in profits.
Of course, only risk what you can comfortably afford, but, right now, this is one of the best pros for buying Shiba Inu (SHIB).
Check Out: Why Shiba Inu Is One Of The Cheapest Cryptocurrencies
Con #3: Robinhood Crypto Exchange Reject Shiba Inu (SHIB)
For SHIB, a listing on the Robinhood exchange would expose the token to millions of crypto traders. But, in the first week of November 2021, Robinhood COO Christine Brown announced they would not list Shiba Inu.
Brown, who oversees operations and compliance for the crypto exchange, said, "The first thing is that we're not going to talk about it,"
Brown went on to say, "I also think that our strategy is a little bit different than a lot of the other players out there who are just racing to list as many assets as possible right now," she said. "We think that the short-term gain we might get is not worth the long-term trade-off for our users."
Brown reiterated that Robinhood is a "safety-first company" and stated they are "assessing everything from a regulatory perspective really well."
Safety concerns and regulatory perspective? Is this Robinhood's way of saying that they don't trust that Shiba Inu will be around long-term?
This announcement is a bit of a kick in the teeth for Shiba Inu because Robinhood recently added Dogecoin (DOGE) to its small base of only seven listed coins. For Dogecoin (DOGE), it's a massive boost. For the "Dogecoin killer", the ShibArmy must be reeling with disappointment.
Undoubtedly, the Robinhood rejection will create a lack of investor confidence and add further to the low median holding times for SHIB.
In May 2021, a petition launched on change.org to request a Robinhood listing for Shiba Inu (SHIB). To date, 500,000 people have signed the petition, and it continues to grow.
As an aside, in November, Robinhood had a data breach, with hackers gaining access to email addresses and names of millions of Robinhood users. This incident makes a bit of a mockery of the 'safety' concerns for Shiba Inu.
Pro #4 Dog-Themed Cryptos Continue To Be Popular
Dog-themed meme tokens have undoubtedly captured the public eye.
The Dogecoin (DOGE) goofy-looking Shiba Inu dog logo instantly appealed to the public. Though, at first, it took a while to catch on. But as soon as prominent investors got involved, like Elon Musk, suddenly dog-themed cryptos were of interest to retail investors. And even the uneducated public wanted to take a punt on becoming a millionaire from buying Shiba Inu (SHIB).
Dogecoin (DOGE) paved the way for Shiba Inu (SHIB). It didn't have such a steep climb to become a popular crypto and rapidly attract investors.
Today, there are at least thirteen dog-themed cryptos available. Shiba Inu (SHIB) is one of the most popular, standing next in line to Dogecoin (DOGE).
Whether the interest in dog-themed meme tokens will last remains to be seen. But for now, the popularity continues to increase, assisted by Shiba Inu's effective branding.
Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Con #4: Elon Musk Doesn't Support Shiba Inu (SHIB)
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, loves Dogecoin, the original dog-meme crypto. His many public statements helped push DOGE prices higher and garner public support.
Recently Musk became a board member of the resurrected Dogecoin Foundation, alongside Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, further demonstrating his commitment to Dogecoin.
Musk recently adopted a Shiba Inu puppy, such is his love for dog-themed cryptos, but he hasn't announced interest in Shiba Inu (SHIB).
Why isn't Elon Musk adopting Shiba Inu?
Potentially, there could be several reasons why Musk isn't supporting Shiba Inu. Recently Musk disclosed his crypto portfolio consists of Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), and Bitcoin (BTC).
The other reason could be as simple as he may not want to support crypto that intends to kill Dogecoin, his favourite crypto. Lack of endorsement by Musk is not good news for Shiba Inu investors, and it's highly likely not to change in the future.
The Shiba Inu network may have got it a bit wrong with their determination to be the "Dogecoin killer."
Will Elon Musk ever support Shiba Inu (SHIB)?
A tweet by Twitter influencer Sawyer Merritt said, "So it appears the Tesla website source code shows SHIBA (aka $SHIB) under the payment type section in the code when clicking 'inspect element' during checkout. It's not live, however. Since I am not a coder or anything, I'll let ya'll figure out what the heck this means lol."
A response from a web developer confirmed the code is real and is "a super interesting leak."
This information is, however, pure speculation at this point.
Pro #5 Shiba Inu (SHIB) Is Listed On Binance
Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. The platform listed SHIB in May 2021.
Shiba Inu's exposure on Binance raises the meme token's profile, making it more available to buy and trade for crypto investors and traders.
And, to add to the interest, at the end of October, Binance announced its intention to open trading on 2nd November for SHIB/DOGE, instantly increasing the appeal for Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) fans.
This new trading option is an exciting twist in the seemingly ongoing battle for Shiba Inu to knock Dogecoin off the top ten.
Don't Miss: How To Trade Shiba Inu With $100
Con #5 Shiba Inu (SHIB) Is Ethereum Based
SHIB is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, which we may consider to be positive. Still, potentially it's also a negative because Shiba Inu is not an independent blockchain and relies 100% on Ethereum for functionality.
Many cryptocurrencies are independent blockchains, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH) and thousands of others. Becoming an independent blockchain would be a positive move for Shiba Inu. But as yet, there are no statements of intent from the Shiba Inu network.
Shiba Inu (SHIB) does not yet appeal to most institutional investors. Retail traders and investors currently dominate the Shiba Inu market. So far, retail support has carried Shiba Inu to incredible growth. But perhaps institutional investors would take it more seriously if it were an independent blockchain.
Recap Of Should You Buy Shiba Inu. 5 Pros, 5 Cons
There are many conflicting opinions on Shiba Inu (SHIB). Is Shiba Inu destined for the stars, or will the appeal fizzle out as dog-themed meme tokens become less popular?
The five pros and five cons of Shiba Inu (SHIB) are:
Pros of Shiba Inu (SHIB)
✅ Shiba Inu has built a valuable brand
✅ The ShibaSwap platform
✅ Shiba Inu's entry price is low
✅ Dog-themed cryptos continue to be popular
✅ Shiba Inu (SHIB) is listed on Binance
Cons of Shiba Inu (SHIB)
❌ Shiba Inu (SHIB) has extreme volatility
❌ Lack of real-world utility
❌ Robinhood crypto exchange rejects Shiba Inu (SHIB)
❌ Elon Musk doesn't support Shiba Inu (SHIB)
❌ Shiba Inu (SHIB) is Ethereum-based
On balance, it would seem that the pros outweigh the cons of buying Shiba Inu (SHIB). The low entry point makes it an attractive proposition for a small investor, and availability on Binance is a huge positive.
As the ShibaSwap exchange gains users, that too may add to the growth of Shiba Inu (SHIB).
Volatility is the norm in the crypto market. Still, the lack of real-world utility may eventually cause Shiba Inu's downfall as other cryptocurrencies emerge with better utility and independent blockchains.
For the short-term, if Tesla does add SHIB as a payment option, the price of SHIB could quickly skyrocket.
Please note that the above information is not providing advice on tax, investment, or financial services. We provide the above information without consideration for risk tolerance and a specific investor's financial circumstances.
Trading or investing in financial instruments such as cryptos may not be suitable for all investors. It does involve risk and the possibility of a loss of capital. There are no guarantees for profiting from cryptocurrencies, and it's advisable only to risk what you can comfortably afford to lose.
eToro – Best Exchange To Buy Shiba Inu
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Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Should You Buy Shiba Inu? 5 Pros, 5 Cons - FAQs
Is Shiba Inu (SHIB) a good long-term investment?
Crypto experts always err on the side of caution when advising on investing in cryptocurrencies. Novice investors tend to rely on hope rather than research when buying cryptocurrencies. Regarding investing in Shiba Inu, experts at investorplace.com say relying on hope is a poor strategy. They said, "While crypto millionaires are a real thing, the use cases and utility set each coin apart,"; "Although Shiba Inu has an excellent development team, they have not set the coin apart in terms of functionality. Ultimately, purchasing something with no inherent fundamental value is not a prudent financial decision."
Johnny Lyu, CEO of KuCoin, the third-largest crypto exchange in the world, disagrees. He thinks investing in Shiba Inu is a good long-term investment. Lyu said, "Seeing bitcoin's rise, some younger investors without a lot of money want to profit from crypto as well,"; "You'd need over $60,000 to buy one bitcoin. So they turn to Dogecoin and SHIB, where you buy tons using just $100."; "These investors are very passionate about such tokens and are determined to push the prices higher."
Ultimately, the choice to buy Shiba Inu (SHIB) is yours, but the low price point for investment is attractive to the small investor who wants to spend less than $100 for the chance to become a Shiba Inu millionaire.
Where can I buy Shiba Inu (SHIB)?
SHIB is available on many leading cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Binance. You can also buy, trade and store your SHIB tokens with eToro, the world's leading social trading platform.
Can Shiba Inu make me a millionaire?
Nobody can guarantee becoming a millionaire by buying Shiba Inu. To date, the staggering growth of SHIB created many millionaires and a billionaire. With such a low price now, even relatively small market moves could produce significant results. However, if you buy Shiba Inu (SHIB), you may need to HODL it for the long term, at least a year or so, depending on what happens next with Shiba Inu (SHIB).
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