Meme Coin War: Shiba Inu Overtakes Dogecoin As Market Value Hits $42.7 Billion

One of the most popular meme coins, Shiba Inu (SHIB) has overtaken Dogecoin (DOGE) to hit a $42.7 billion market capitalisation, taking the 8th spot on the list of top digital assets by market capitalization.

However, its rival, Dogecoin is currently in the 10th spot with a total market capitalisation of $39.8 billion.

In the last seven days, Shiba Inu tagged “dogecoin killer” has surged by over 170 percent amid wild speculation of it being listed on Robinhood a popular U.S. trading app.

However, an intense dog fight between the two most popular meme coins, Shiba Inu and Dogecoin has seen traders rotating profits within the two meme coins. Some traders are profiting from the renewed interest in the two by taking spread trades.

On Wednesday, Shiba surged to $0.00008700 or 64.80 percent from $0.00004798 it opened before dropping to $0.00004689 to close the day’s trade at $0.00007907. The same day Dogecoin opened trade at $0.25585 surged to $0.26362 to close at $0.23790.

The price action observed in the past several hours is perhaps reflective of the rotation of money out of SHIB and into Doge the rival meme coin, and vice versa. Doge is still down by over 60% from its all-time high of $0.74 in May.

“It’s hard to deny that money could be moving to DOGE,” pseudonymous trader and self-proclaimed JPEG collector Kano The Giga Chad said while revealing his position to CoinDesk.

“Being short SHIB and long DOGE feels nice, I took the position about two hours,” the trader said.

It was revealed that retail investors account for almost the entire volume in meme coins. A surge in trading activities of meme coins is observed to represent excess greed as often seen at market tops.

Dogecoin has surged to $0.33807, however, at press time the meme coin is trading at $0.30619. Shiba Inu is currently trading at $0.00007298 after dropping low to $0.00005648.

Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus in a tweet warned that the crypto market is “all about risk.”

“There are no promises in crypto, except from scammers,” said Markus. “The people telling the truth will tell you that it’s just all about risk. Your profits only come from other people taking their own risk. If you lose money, you paid for someone else’s risk. Ultimately, that is your choice.”

However, some do think there are legitimate reasons for investors to buy both the dogecoin and Shiba Inu cryptocurrencies. Dogecoin, a fork of bitcoin that dates back to 2014, is currently less sophisticated in its smart contract capabilities than Shiba Inu—launched just this year.

“Bitcoin is designed to be scarce whereas SHIB is intentionally made in a way that is abundant in nature,” Nirmal Ranga, chief revenue officer at bitcoin and crypto platform ZebPay, said in emailed comments.

“The Shiba Inu token system supports innovative and artistic projects like non-fungible token (NFT) art incubators. The development of its own decentralized exchange called the ShibaSwap is also in the pipeline, all factors which have been driving the tokens value and interest among traders.”