It was March 14, 2021, when Elon Musk wrote on his official Twitter profile that he is getting a Shiba Inu.
I’m getting a Shiba Inu #resistanceisfutile
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2021
Although that post referred to a dog, the hashtag added by Musk rather clearly suggested that he was also referring to the namesake cryptocurrency.
The rise of Shiba Inu also thanks to Elon Musk
The first memecoin ever created is Dogecoin, launched in 2013, dedicated to a famous meme of a dog.
Musk has supported Dogecoin since the beginning of 2021, and in March of that same year, he seemed to have started supporting Shiba Inu as well.
Shiba Inu, unlike Dogecoin which is a true cryptocurrency, is a token, and it was created the previous year.
Until precisely March 2021, it had not attracted any attention in the crypto markets, but after Musk’s mention, a boom began that in a very short time took its price from 0.5 millionths of a dollar to 34 millionths.
That boom, however, did not end in May 2021, because in November it took it to the all-time highs of 88 millionths.
In short, in less than ten months, it had gained more than 15,000%.
The decline
However, that was an evident speculative bubble, which burst already at the end of 2021.
Over the course of a year and a half, its price fell below 8 millionths of a dollar, losing more than 90% of its value, only to plummet further in 2023, when it also fell below 7 millionths.
Not even the bullrun at the end of 2023 was of any use, because it only served to interrupt the descending lateralization trend, bringing the price of Shiba Inu only to 11 millionths.
On the other hand, Elon Musk has not talked about Shiba Inu since July of last year.
However, the trend of the price of SHIB continues to be linked to that of DOGE.
For example, in March of this year Dogecoin recorded a +140% which also brought along Shiba Inu.
At that point, the decline seemed to have ended, as the price of SHIB had returned at least above 30 millionths, but instead, in the following months, it collapsed again, remaining however always well above 11 millionths.
The recent boom
Starting from October, the price of Dogecoin has started to rise again, with a +300% in just under two months.
In reality, the rebound of Shiba Inu, following the collapse of the past months, already began in September, even if for now it has only served to bring it back above 30 millionths.
Despite the recent boom in the crypto market, and the notable performance of some altcoins that have returned to their highs, the price of Shiba Inu in recent weeks has not even managed to return to the annual highs of March.
Dogecoin, on the other hand, managed to significantly surpass the highs of 2024, managing to return to -40% from the all-time highs of 2021. Shiba Inu, on the other hand, is still at -65% from the highs.
There is, however, a difference.
In 2021 Dogecoin reached its highs in May, while Shiba Inu did so in November. The current price of Shib, above 30 millionths of a dollar, is indeed still much lower than the highs of November 2021, but it is in line with the previous highs of May of the same year.
This suggests that, while Dogecoin in 2021 exhausted its strength in the crypto markets when Musk stopped promoting it, Shiba Inu instead continued for a few more months, and now it is mainly affected by that second part of the speculative bubble that did not occur with DOGE.
Elon Musk and the crypto beyond Shiba Inu
Since Musk entered politics, he hasn’t been doing much explicit advertising for cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, it remains focused mainly on Dogecoin, while for other similar tokens (such as Shiba Inu and Floki) it seems to have completely ceased any propaganda activity.
On Dogecoin, however, it is continuing, so much so that it has named its new department DOGE with which it is helping Trump find ways to cut public spending.
Despite this, however, the market value of Dogecoin is still significantly below the highs of 2021, even if it may have embarked on a path that could lead it towards new peaks.
The problem with Dogecoin is that, as a crypto project, it still has nothing concrete. That is, for now, it remains solely and exclusively a memecoin, from a strictly technical point of view, even if the Shiba Inu case shows that even an evolution in the project may not be sufficient to reverse the trend.
In fact, its layer-2 Shibarium has now been launched for quite some time, but it has never really been able to make a difference in the price.
In the absence of publicity like that done by Musk in 2021, it is difficult for it to register new stellar performances, also because in the meantime many other memecoins have emerged that are promoted much more.
