The price of Shiba Inu coin has risen this week, climbing to $0.0000249, having opened at $0.0000217 on Monday.
The climb has led to hopes among investors that the meme cryptocurrency could move back towards highs of almost $0.0008 seen back in October 2021.
Here’s everything you need to know about the token, and where experts predict its price could go in 2022.
What is Shiba Inu coin?
On its website, Shiba Token calls itself “an experiment in decentralised spontaneous community building”.
It is listed on its own decentralised exchange called ShibaSwap.
According to Binance, the total supply of Shiba Tokens is one quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) and the current circulating supply is 100 per cent.
The Shiba Token website says 50 per cent of the total supply has been locked to Uniswap, a decentralised finance protocol that facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.
The remaining 50 per cent was burned to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
“Everyone has to buy on the open market, ensuring a fair and complete distribution where devs don’t own team tokens they can dump on the community,” the website states.
However, according to Binance, “the top no 1, no 2 and no 5 wallets hold 50.5 per cent, seven per cent and three per cent of total supply respectively”.
The coin’s mascot is the Shiba Inu dog, the same breed that represents Dogecoin. It has also nicknamed itself the “Dogecoin Killer”.
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What do experts predict for Shiba in 2022?
Simon Peters, cryptoasset analyst at eToro, said: “As to whether its value will increase – it is possible.
“As more exchanges begin to list the token and provide investors the opportunity to gain exposure, like any asset it will become more routinely traded alongside the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“That being said, anyone investing in such tokens needs to do so carefully.”
Myron Jobson, personal finance campaigner of Interactive Investor, told The Sun: “It is difficult to predict the price of something that has an intrinsic value of zero.
“All it takes is a tweet from high-profile individuals who have significant influence on sentiment to cryptos to drive up demand.
“But greater regulatory scrutiny on cryptos threatens to hamper the growth potential of the Shiba Inu.”
Wallet Investor predicts Shiba Inu coin could be valued at around $0.000517 in a year’s time – more than double its current price, while Coin Price Forecast says it could reach $0.0000423 by the end of 2022.
However, plenty of other experts see it going the other way, and such a volatile currency could easily lose almost all of its value in a matter of days, if not hours.
Is Shiba Inu coin a good investment?
People invest at their own risk and cryptocurrencies are not regulated by British financial authorities.
All crypto investments are risky, but meme coins like Shiba Inu are particularly volatile, and you should be prepared to lose everything you invest.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned in January: “Investing in cryptoassets, or investments and lending linked to them, generally involves taking very high risks with investors’ money.
“If consumers invest in these types of product, they should be prepared to lose all their money.”
Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown previously explained the risks to i.
She said: “On top of being extremely volatile, most cryptocurrencies are unregulated, which not only adds another layer of uncertainty but also means that investors have little or no protection against fraud.”
