Can you learn to embrace the market’s irrationality in the 2020s? You’ll need to reflect on that question before taking a position in dog-themed altcoin Shiba Inu (CCC:SHIB-USD).
While Shiba Inu was perceived as a joke token in the early stages, today it’s a project with a surprisingly large and loyal social media following. Furthermore, its developers recently announced a SHIB coin burn in order to limit the supply. So, maybe there is some method to the madness with Shiba Inu.
Speaking of social media, it might only take one tweet to send Shiba Inu’s price soaring. It’s happened before and could happen again at any moment. So, you might regret not keeping a few coins in your account.
A Price So Low It’s Almost Hard to Comprehend
It actually takes a while to wrap your head around Shiba Inu’s price because it has so many zeros.
As I write, the altcoin is trading at $0.0000276. That’s a fraction of a penny but represents an astronomical gain from the $0.000000000073 it began the year at.
SHIB topped out in mid-May at $0.00003641. That was followed by a price crash and another surge. While Shiba Inu is down from its recent high of $0.00003502, made two weeks ago, it is still up massively year to date.
The super bulls are hoping Shiba Inu eventually gets to a full penny. It’s possible, albeit not guaranteed, in the crazy world of altcoins. But the gains would be astronomical for those who bought now.
Musk’s Magic
There are plenty of people who tweet about Shiba Inu, yet few of them actually have enough influence to move the price.
But Elon Musk does. The tech billionaire is known for price-moving tweets about Shiba Inu and other cryptocurrencies.
On Oct. 17, Musk published a cryptic tweet. There were no words in this particular tweet. It only contained characters that seem to form a dog (or possibly a rabbit), and the animal in question appears to be holding a rocketship.
Bear in mind, Musk is the CEO of SpaceX. Could his tweet have been a reference to space travel? Was it an expression of “to-the-moon” optimism for the Shiba Inu coin?
Heaven only knows. In any case, the price of Shiba Inu jumped, with @CryptoWhale tweeting: “BREAKING: Shiba Inu Coin $SHIB has now surged over 21% after Elon Musks Tweet.”
This wasn’t Musk’s only dog-themed tweet to supposedly move the price of the altcoin. On Oct. 3, he tweeted a photo of Floki, his Shiba Inu puppy, that was associated with another price spike.
The Potential of a Meme Token
If it only takes a social media post to push Shiba Inu up, it almost seems inevitable that the price will be higher a year from now, and five years from now.
Back when the SHIB token was launched in August 2020, few people took it seriously. Some saw it as a ripoff of Dogecoin (CCC:DOGE-USD).
The next thing you know, Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) is making Shiba Inu available for trading on Coinbase.com and in the Coinbase Android and iOS apps.
It wasn’t a long journey to get there — a little over a year, actually. Imagine what could be accomplished in five years, and how much the price could increase by then, especially as Shiba Inu’s developers are working to reduce the supply in circulation.
The Bottom Line on Shiba Inu
None of this is intended to get you to take a large position in Shiba Inu. Please, use moderation.
But there’s nothing wrong with buying a small amount of SHIB to see what happens. It may be best to put it in your account and not look at it for a while. Check back in a few years. Shiba Inu might actually reach a full penny by then, or it might not exist at all.
Either way, at least you took a chance on something fun and potentially profitable. If Musk can do illogical things from time to time, so can you.
On the date of publication, David Moadel did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
David Moadel has provided compelling content – and crossed the occasional line – on behalf of Crush the Street, Market Realist, TalkMarkets, Finom Group, Benzinga, and (of course) InvestorPlace.com. He also serves as the chief analyst and market researcher for Portfolio Wealth Global and hosts the popular financial YouTube channel Looking at the Markets.
