Shiba Inu (SHIB -2.47%) had humble beginnings as a dog-themed joke token, not unlike Dogecoin and Floki Inu. If Shiba Inu manages to reach a whole dollar someday, however, the joke will be on the doubters, and early investors will be sitting on multi-bagger returns.
Yet, the road to $1 will inevitably be paved with challenges, and perhaps the biggest one for Shiba Inu will be shaking off its meme-coin reputation. Little by little, however, Shiba Inu appears to be gaining traction as a coin of utility and real-world value. Moreover, an upcoming event could change the nature of Shiba Inu -- and the landscape of cryptocurrency in general -- on a permanent basis.
Shiba Inu's road to legitimacy
Mathematically, getting Shiba Inu to $1 will require many multiples of gains from the coin's current price. As Shiba Inu earns recognition and credibility little by little, however, some (though maybe not all) of those zeros to the right of the decimal point could eventually disappear.
Each time Shiba Inu is mentioned in a positive light, that's another stepping stone toward legitimacy in the eyes of the investing public. One example would be the report that the Robinhood platform holds 20 trillion Shiba Inu tokens in custody.
Also in recent news, cryptocurrency payment services provider BitPay has included Shiba Inu among the tokens that can be used to pay bills from a crypto wallet. This is significant as BitPay is popular among cryptocurrency users, and this service could benefit the unbanked while making Shiba Inu a more convenient currency of payment.
Furthermore, well-known cryptocurrency exchange Binance has listed Shiba Inu as a new collateral asset for its Flexible Loan service. Binance describes this service as one that "allows users to complete loan orders while collateralizing cryptocurrencies" in certain existing product subscriptions.
An event to transform Shiba Inu
While these developments are certainly significant, an upcoming event could be even more important to Shiba Inu. Specifically, the Shibarium event, which was introduced to the crypto community earlier this year, has the potential to elevate Shiba Inu from a meme coin to a bona fide blockchain-based ecosystem.
There doesn't appear to be any established date for the Shibarium event, but it's been described as a project/event that will add a layer-2 network, built on Ethereum, to the Shiba Inu blockchain.
Without getting into the arcane technical details, suffice it to say that Shibarium will hopefully make Shiba Inu run faster, be more scalable, and have faster transaction speeds at a lower cost. Plus, Shibarium should enable developers to build decentralized apps (DApps) within the new Shiba Inu ecosystem.
There's a great deal of enthusiasm surrounding the anticipated arrival of Shibarium among Shiba Inu enthusiasts on X (the service formerly known as Twitter). I even found an announcement of a free ticket giveaway to Canada's Blockchain Futurist Conference on the official Shiba Inu Twitter account.
Aim high, but keep your feet on the ground
Still, none of these events -- not even the highly anticipated Shibarium -- will likely be enough to drive Shiba Inu to $1. Granted, the loyal community and the consistent drumbeat of positive press coverage could propel Shiba Inu to new heights. If this fan base grows while Shiba Inu keeps popping up in the financial press, eventual 10x or even 100x returns for SHIB might be possible.
Yet, a highly optimistic 100x move in Shiba Inu wouldn't get investors anywhere near a full dollar. Again, just think about the math: With its current coin count, SHIB would have a market cap of $574 trillion. Sure, the Shiba Inu community is known for conducting coin burns (just search for #shibburn on Twitter and you'll see what I'm talking about). But there would have to be not just a burning, but a towering inferno to get SHIB anywhere near $1.
So, I encourage you to focus on acceptance, adoption, utility, and community rather than the fiat-centric goal of $1. That way, you can join an exciting emerging crypto movement while staying grounded and, hopefully, turning a nice profit along the way.
