Better Buy: Ripple vs. Shiba Inu

Judging by the headlines they generate, you might think of Shiba Inu (SHIB -5.26%) as a larger, more popular cryptocurrency than Ripple (XRP -1.83%). The XRP Official channel on X (formerly known as Twitter) has 382,000 followers with their eyes on Ripple's news and plans. Shiba Inu's Shibtoken account boasts 3.7 million X followers. The dog-themed crypto could make a claim for the popularity crown based on its social media presence alone.

However, that's only true from a popularity standpoint. Ripple is absolutely a more serious business, and it shows in the cryptocurrency's financial metrics. The XRP token (commonly known as Ripple) comes with a much larger market footprint and more intense trading activity despite lacking social media muscle.

But which cryptocurrency is the better buy today? Is it Shiba Inu, the dog-themed joke currency with a deceptively sophisticated technical platform? Or is it Ripple, the business-minded system for efficient international payments?

Let's say I own one of these coins but not the other and have no plans to flip that setup anytime soon. Let me explain why I continue to recommend Ripple over Shiba Inu, no matter how hard the smaller coin's mascot blinks those puppy eyes at me.

Data source: CoinMarketCap.com on Sept. 1, 2023. NFT = non-fungible token.

Ripple: A proven global payments system

As you can see, Shiba Inu may hog the spotlight, but Ripple is making things happen in the real world.

The RippleNet payment system processes thousands of border-crossing payments every day. This was true even while American crypto exchanges kept their hands off the XRP token due to potential legal trouble from the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) long-running lawsuit.

And here's a curious detail. Judge Analisa Torres dismissed two of the SEC's three lawsuit claims on July 13, and most U.S. crypto exchanges enabled XRP trading within 24 hours. There was a brief spike in XRP's payment transactions but no real change in Ripple's healthy transaction volumes.

In other words, the world watched America return to the XRP market, only to shrug and keep doing business as usual. This was always a global payment service anyway, perfectly capable of running a useful service without American participation.

So, Ripple has been running a successful business for years and is building on that proven platform as we speak. Governments and regulators are doing test runs of XRP-based stablecoins to serve as official digital currencies in several countries. The Ripple Liquidity Hub has become a powerful currency exchange tool with endpoints in over 50 countries.

Enabling low-cost international transactions in the blink of an eye, Ripple offers a much-needed service. This is a system I can get behind, and I'm glad to have a few XRP tokens in my digital pocket.

Shiba Inu: A cute and refined community experiment

Now, Shiba Inu is not a complete joke. This whimsical crypto project keeps impressing me with its technical sophistication.

Shiba Inu is based on a serious whitepaper with a silly name. The token was launched as an experiment in community-driven project management, and the Shiba Inu community takes an active interest in keeping the technical platform current. The recent Shibarium launch was a success, for example, adding a Layer 2 network to boost the transaction processing speed, among other benefits.

And the platform's technology is surprisingly sophisticated. Shiba Inu is supported by the Bone governance token and the limited-supply Leash token, which serves as a customer loyalty reward for longtime Shiba Inu holders. Together, the three Ethereum-based tokens form the ShibaSwap decentralized finance (DeFi) system.

You can earn staking rewards, mint non-fungible tokens (NFTs), provide funds for your project through a built-in liquidity system, and more. These business-like actions have adorable names, so you dig for liquidity and bury tokens for staking while earning woof rewards. It adds up to a brilliant marketing program, taking the Dogecoin silliness to a new level and wrapping it in layers of serious utility.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why I prefer Ripple over Shiba Inu

Don't get me wrong; Shiba Inu is more than just a flash in the pan. Its technological platform is surprisingly robust, and its community is engaged and passionate. But in the cold, hard arena of investment choices, Ripple comes out ahead for me.

You might prefer Shiba Inu over Ripple due to its community-driven management and potentially wider range of applications. The token also comes with Ethereum's ironclad security and that dog-themed media presence we looked at earlier.

Yet, Shiba Inu is not the no-brainer platform people use when building a new DeFi app or minting an NFT. Ethereum is the undisputed king in both cases.

Shiba Inu attempts to do many different things at once but doesn't excel at any of them. Ripple does one thing very well. One of these projects is run like a business, the other like a community experiment.

The business-minded Ripple token is the clear choice for long-term investors. This global payments system is gaining traction in the market, in the courtroom, and among governments considering digital currency options. Shiba Inu is a good boy but hardly suitable as a watchdog for my crypto-investing portfolio.