When crypto investors dream of becoming millionaires, they often think of Shiba Inu (SHIB -10.10%). The popular meme token brought some investors wealth when it soared 45,000,000% back in 2021. Since, though, the crypto with a cute dog mascot has lost that momentum. And the big question is whether Shiba Inu will ever get it back.

The crypto actually is better today than when it soared in value. It's launched a metaverse project, and its layer-2 solution, Shibarium, is in beta test mode. Still, these elements have failed to push Shiba Inu higher. Is it time to sell? Let's find out.

Shiba Inu's glory days

First, a look back at Shiba Inu's glory days. A veil of mystery surrounded the crypto from its launch: We know of the founder only by the pseudonym "Ryoshi." That and the mascot helped push Shiba Inu into the spotlight. Some social media attention from Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk helped too. Finally, loyal fans known as the "Shib Army" supported Shiba Inu across social media platforms -- and helped boost the token's popularity.

Of course, seeing Shiba Inu's enormous gains, investors, fearful of missing out, piled in. And it was easy to do that considering the token traded for a fraction of a cent -- and this is still the case, even after the 2021 gains.

Shiba Inu fulfilled the promise of its whitepaper, becoming an example of "decentralized spontaneous community building."

So, why hasn't Shiba Inu continued climbing? For a few reasons. The general economic environment last year didn't favor risky assets such as cryptocurrencies. When the economy weakens, investors generally head for safety. So assets like dividend stocks or healthcare players benefit. All of this weighed on the entire crypto market.

But that isn't the only problem. In fact, that's probably the smallest problem -- because it's temporary and not linked specifically to Shiba Inu.

The bigger issues for Shiba Inu are the facts that it doesn't stand out from other cryptocurrencies, doesn't have many use cases, and struggles with a huge token supply. Shiba Inu is primarily a payment token -- and even there, only a limited number of merchants accept this kind of payment. Otherwise, investors can stake their holding for passive income. Rivals offer the same opportunities -- and often much more.

An enormous token supply

As for circulating token supply, Shiba Inu's tops 589 trillion. The problem here is that limits gains in value. For example, if Shiba Inu were to climb to $1, its market value would be worth $589 trillion -- way more than the entire cryptocurrency market and even massive companies like Apple or Amazon.

In recent times, though, Shiba Inu has made progress in countering these challenges. The crypto introduced its metaverse project, which today allows people to buy land and later will feature gaming and events. Shiba Inu's Shibarium allows developers to build decentralized applications on the layer-2, is low cost, and has a mechanism for burning tokens (the idea here is to lower token supply).

The good news is Shiba Inu has launched these projects. The bad news is they haven't been catalysts to lift the value of the cryptocurrency. In fact, Shiba Inu has slippped about 20% over the past month. If these efforts weren't enough to give Shiba Inu a boost, it's hard to imagine what might lift this meme token in the coming months.

But it isn't too surprising that these developments haven't driven Shiba Inu higher. They're positive events for sure. But they still don't solve the problems I mentioned above. If Shiba Inu doesn't stand out from rivals and the token supply remains high, it's unlikely this crypto will define the cryptocurrency market of tomorrow.

So, should you sell?

The answer to this depends on your financial situation, comfort with risk, and gains or losses on Shiba Inu so far.

Investors who have won on their investment or haven't lost much probably would be better off selling. If you're looking at a potentially big loss and can accept that, you also may consider exiting now. Otherwise, you may prefer sticking around -- it's possible Shiba Inu will recover somewhat if Shibarium and the metaverse project take off.

In any case, today I wouldn't buy Shiba Inu. The cryptocurrency world offers other better opportunities.