What happened
Since 4 p.m. ET on Friday, everyone's favorite meme token, Shiba Inu (SHIB 1.96%), has surged 16.5%, as of 11 a.m. ET. Yet another significant weekend move follows a rather incredible January, in which this cryptocurrency rocketed more than 40% higher.
Today's move appears to be tied to news that BONE, a token intended to be used on ShibaSwap and can be used to pay gas fees on Shiba Inu's Layer-2 network Shibarium, has been listed on crypto exchange Bitget. This token will enable investors to vote on governance proposals and pay for fees.
While the community awaits a decision from Binance on whether BONE will be listed, this is certainly a step in the right direction for the Shiba Inu team in terms of generating interest around the network's upcoming upgrades.
So what
As far as meme tokens are concerned, Shiba Inu's relative outperformance this year is notable. After hitting record lows relative to rival meme token Dogecoin, the impressive year-to-date rally in SHIB of approximately 65% at the time of this writing has narrowed the gap once again between these two tokens.
This recent listing of BONE on a crypto exchange is great, but investors will clearly want to see greater adoption of this token by other key exchanges prior to this network's launch. That said, this news has had a significant effect on Shiba Inu's price momentum, with speculators clearly betting that more upside could be on the horizon.
Now what
This upcoming Shibarium upgrade could certainly provide some meaningful utility for end users. Investors will want to keep a close eye on key metrics such as transaction volumes and development activity on Shibarium post-launch. For now, this is the sort of hype-driven catalyst that could result in a continued rally in this high-beta token.
