With just three weeks to go before the curtain closes on 2021, we can confidently say it's been another solid year for most investors. Through Dec. 6, the broad-based S&P 500 was higher by 22% -- that's double its average annual total return dating back four decades -- and the aggregate value of cryptocurrencies has more than tripled to $2.37 trillion.
However, one cryptocurrency has left every other asset on this planet in the dust in 2021.
Shiba Inu dogs have inspired a number of top-performing cryptocurrencies. Image source: Getty Images.
How does a 51,000,000% year-to-date gain sound?
When the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, Shiba Inu (SHIB -0.35%) tokens could be purchased for a minuscule $0.000000000073 per token, according to CoinMarketCap.com. Over the past 11 months and change, six of those zeroes following the decimal point have gone bye-bye. With SHIB trading hands for nearly $0.000038 earlier this week, crypto investors with the luck, stomach, and wherewithal to have hung on since Jan. 1 are up by more than 51,000,000%! In other words, a $2 investment at midnight on Jan. 1 would have made you a millionaire as of the time of this writing.
There are a number of factors that have come into play to push SHIB to these historic gains. In no particular order, Shiba Inu coin has benefited from:
- A growing number of cryptocurrency exchanges listing SHIB.
- The launch of decentralized exchange ShibaSwap, which is encouraging longer hold times.
- The fear of missing out (FOMO) driving buying activity.
- Coin burn reducing the circulating supply of SHIB tokens.
- Excitement concerning new projects.
This publicly traded stock trio plans to accept SHIB
One additional catalyst I didn't mention in the above list is the acceptance of Shiba Inu coin as a form of payment. Although the vast majority of merchants currently accepting SHIB are obscure online retailers or crypto exchanges, the following three publicly traded companies are either already accepting Shiba Inu coin or plan to integrate it into their payment system very soon.
Image source: Getty Images.
AMC Entertainment
Arguably the best-known merchant set to accept Shiba Inu coin is movie theater chain AMC Entertainment (AMC 8.22%).
AMC CEO Adam Aron has not been shy about appealing to the company's impassioned investor base to ask what sort of strategies they'd like to see employed. Accepting cryptocurrency is one of the many changes AMC has begun implementing in the hope of bringing more people back to movie theaters.
In late October, Aron posted a poll on Twitter that asked users whether AMC should accept SHIB. Of the 153,100 respondents, 87.6% were in favor of AMC accepting Shiba Inu in some capacity. A few weeks later, Aron confirmed via tweet that engineers were working behind the scenes to incorporate Shiba Inu as a form of payment within 60 to 120 days. This places SHIB on track to be accepted online for gift cards, movie tickets, and concessions by sometime in the first quarter.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bots
On the other end of the spectrum is a penny stock called Bots, which trades on the over-the-counter exchange. Despite being tiny, it is a publicly traded company and has noted its willingness to take SHIB as a form of payment.
The San Juan, Puerto Rico-based Bots is a blockchain-focused solutions company with services in the financial technology and cryptocurrency mining space. According to the company, it can assist with building Bitcoin mining operations, repair and optimize existing mining operations, and provides franchising opportunities for Bitcoin ATM kiosks.
On Dec. 3, a Bots press release announced its intention to accept Shiba Inu coin. The press release primarily focused on SHIB's meteoric rise and the expectation that cryptocurrencies will become a mainstream form of payment.
Image source: Getty Images.
Newegg Commerce
On Nov. 29, Newegg Commerce (NEGG 3.39%) unveiled its intention to accept Shiba Inu for payment in time for the holiday shopping season. According to a press release from the company, it announced the move on The Reef, North America's largest digital out-of-home billboard, located in downtown Los Angeles.
The move to accept Shiba Inu jibes with Newegg's desire to be the preferred destination for online shoppers who want to pay for goods with cryptocurrency. Newegg began taking Bitcoin seven years ago, and has enabled both Dogecoin and Litecoin as additional payment options this year.
While no specific date was given, Newegg anticipates SHIB integration in "early December."
Image source: Getty Images.
A utility reality check
Landing publicly traded companies that'll accept Shiba Inu for payment is certainly a win. However, it's important for current and prospective investors to put these "wins" into the proper perspective.
According to online business directory Cryptwerk, the number of merchants that accept SHIB tokens has rocketed higher over the past two months from a few dozen to 377, as of Dec. 6.
But herein lies the issue. There are more than 32 million businesses in the U.S., and over 500 million entrepreneurs worldwide. In the grand scheme of things, 377 merchants accepting SHIB as a form of payment is a fraction of a fraction of global businesses. What's more, a little over 10% of these 377 merchants are nothing more than cryptocurrency exchanges (i.e., they're not truly merchants), which means the retail utility of this payment coin is even less than what's being advertised.
If Shiba Inu's market value was less than $500 million and it was attempting to grow its utility by snagging new retailers, 377 global merchants might pass the sniff test. But when we're talking about a fringe top-10 cryptocurrency with a greater than $20 billion market cap, investors should expect considerably more real-world utility than 377 merchants.
To build on this point, investors should also expect clear-cut competitive advantages for a cryptocurrency worth over $20 billion -- but that's not what you'll find with Shiba Inu.
Social media hype and FOMO have driven Shiba Inu to what'll likely be historic one-year gains. But there's a lot more work to be done if SHIB is going to command a $1 billion market value, let alone its current valuation of $20.6 billion.
