The cryptocurrency Shiba Inu reached record levels over the weekend, ranking 11th among the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Shiba, also known as SHIB, soared by 50% in 24 hours up to 10:10 AM New York time on Sunday, according to pricing from CoinGecko.com, marking an all-time high earlier in the day. A petition on Change.org calling for the popular trading platform Robinhood to list SHIB has garnered nearly 300,000 signatures, as the cryptocurrency has increased by over 40 million percent over the past year—400,000 times—according to Bloomberg, as reported by Al Arabiya.
Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX, stated in an email, "Low-priced dollar coins are appealing to individuals, as investors can still buy over 20,000 Shiba for a dollar." Meanwhile, Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia-Pacific at the cryptocurrency exchange Luno Pte, noted that with such "meme coins" or rapidly growing cryptocurrencies, "it's difficult to predict the actual reasons behind price movements. However, there are some interesting communities being built around them."
Shiba Inu was created in 2020 by an anonymous person named Ryoshi, and its cryptocurrency website describes it as "a decentralized token that evolved into a vibrant ecosystem." It appears to have been established in the context of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency created as a joke in 2013, also borrowing its logo from an image of a Shiba Inu dog. Dogecoin's market capitalization is around $34 billion, while Shiba Inu's market capitalization is about $21 billion.
