Shiba Inu has become one of the best performers of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. Meme coin started 2023 with a bang, rallying with the entire crypto market but also gaining some independent gains due to the anticipation of Shibarium and general bullishness in the market. Now, the digital asset is crawling back with the big Ethereum whales as interest renews.
Shiba Inu is the largest shareholder by dollar value
Over the past year, Shiba Inu has been unhappy with the big Ethereum whales who have reduced their holdings as the coin’s price has fallen. This big Ethereum whale went from holding more than $1 billion in meme coins at one point in 2021 to less than $300 million at the worst point in 2022.
This has changed rapidly especially with SHIB’s recovering prices. The Ethereum whales have pitched their tent again with meme coins, amassing trillions of tokens over the past few months. This has brought Shiba Inu back to its glory days as the largest token holding dollar value for the top 100 ETH whales, according to data from WhaleStats.
Currently, they have over $608 million in SHIB, which makes up 15.99% of their total token holdings excluding ETH. Activity on the meme coin also increased and SHIB also registered as the most traded token by the whale in the last 24 hours.
SHIB becomes largest holding among top 100 ETH whales | Source: WhaleStats
The SHIB smart contract is the fourth most used smart contract by whales, behind ETH, USDC, and USDT, with a 186% increase in smart contract usage by the top 100 ETH whales.
SHIB Grows 50%, Is There Another Runway?
The price of Shiba Inu has risen more than 50% in the past three weeks, but there is still a runway for the digital asset. One of the factors that can greatly contribute to the increase is the launch of Shibarium, Layer 2 blockchain, which is currently the most anticipated release in the community.
With the launch of Shibarium, the possibility of a rally in the price of SHIB becomes more possible. Although BONE, which will be the token of the ecosystem, will gain more, this movement may be in Shiba Inu because the launch of the Layer 2 blockchain itself will trigger more adoption.
SHIB price rises over 50% in first three weeks of 2023 | Source: SHIBUSD on TradingView.com
There is currently no set date for Shibarium’s launch, but if it happens while the market is still seeing high momentum, it will accelerate the coin’s growth. This makes SHIB’s price likely to be $0.00002 once the launch is complete.
SHIB is currently trading at $0.00001209 as of this writing. The price is up 0.33% in the last 24 hours and 14.12% in the last seven days.