Representation of cryptocurrency Dogecoin is placed on PC motherboard in this illustration taken, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Oct 28 (Reuters) – Dogecoin, watch out!
Meme-based cryptocurrency shiba inu soared more than 45% over the past 24 hours, muscling into the top-10 largest digital tokens by market capitalization.
Shiba inu is a spinoff of dogecoin, itself born as a satire of a cryptocurrency frenzy in 2013, and has barely any practical use.
Yet its price has rocketed around 160% this week, according to CoinMarketCap, leapfrogging dogecoin to become the No. 8 cryptocurrency, with a $42 billion capitalization.
“It seems driven by fad buyers hoping to get in now and flip later to what will need to be a new series of buyers at even higher prices,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
“This makes it closer to a collectible market than a currency market, and as such determining value with traditional analysis seems impossible.”
Trading in shiba inu is volatile, and by midday New York time it had given up most of the day’s gains, but was still up around 7%.
Bitcoin , the biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $1.2 trillion, was up around 4%, but below its record high from last week. read more
Known as “shib” to a growing army of retail investors, shiba inu coins are worth a fraction of a cent. Its website calls it “a decentralised meme token that has evolved into a vibrant ecosystem”.
Driving the gains, analysts said, is the promise of quick gains – a key factor behind the …….