Shiba Inu vs Dogecoin: Which meme owns the next bull cycle?

• Dogecoin and Shiba Inu remain close contestants to repeat their 2021 form.
• A new meme has emerged as another solid contender, although their market caps remain far apart.

As the two titans of the “budding meme kingdom”, Shiba Inu [SHIB] vs Dogecoin [DOGE] is one discussion that has failed to leave the lips of the crypto community. Needless to say, the memes were one of the stars of the 2021 bull market. 

Realistic or not, here’s SHIB’s market cap in BTC’s terms

With their meteoric rise in 2021, investors and traders alike are now looking for the next big meme to hit the market. But for some, DOGE and SHIB both have the capability to replicate the performances that set them into the limelight. Now, the question is— who will outshine the other?

Eyes on the big picture

Enter Shiba Inu, the token created as a medium of exchange in 2020, thanks to a self-serving community. Between 2020 and 2021, SHIB’s value grew exponentially, by almost 982,000%. 

DOGE, on the other hand, entered the market much earlier. For context, the coin was created in 2013 as a “joke” alternative to Bitcoin [BTC]. Thanks to the numerous tweets by Elon Musk, the coin was able to register an incredible 141,000% hike in the season when crypto newbies became dollar millionaires.

But as it stands, the value of DOGE and SHIB has felt the wrath of the market. At the time of writing, SHIB was 88.42% down from its All-Time High (ATH) while DOGE was down 89.21%.

Despite the drawdown, attention has not shifted away from these cryptocurrencies. For instance, Ethereum [ETH] whales have made it a priority to place SHIB as their most valued asset.

As of 27 March, WhaleStats reported that thousands of whales cumulatively held $606.55 million worth of SHIB. This data confirmed the interest in the token despite its discouraging performance.

🐳 The top 2000 #ETH whales are hodling

$606,553,503 $SHIB
$167,714,936 $MATIC
$155,922,150 $BEST
$149,437,264 $LINK
$131,748,690 $CHSB
$96,219,283 $UNI
$70,172,580 $LOCUS
$69,722,963 $MANA

Whale leaderboard 👇https://t.co/R19lKnPlsK pic.twitter.com/GPL9Db9afW

— WhaleStats (tracking crypto whales) (@WhaleStats) March 27, 2023

Holding on to such a large amount could mean that investors have the conviction that SHIB’s long-term performance could be worth the wait. Although Dogecoin hasn’t done badly in terms of whales’ input, it was not able to get the recognition that SHIB has.

As of this writing, the number of addresses holding 1 million to 1 billion DOGE depleted from the highs recorded in January 2023.

Source: Santiment

Is Shiba Inu in control of real utility?

With respect to utility, SHIB seems to have continued to outperform DOGE. As an addition to its concept of token exchange, the Shiba Inu team topped up with the Shibarium project. The project is a layer two (L2) blockchain that houses other tokens including Bone ShibaSwap [BONE], and Doge Killer [LEASH].

Although Shibarium was developed as a value-added project to the Shiba Inu ecosystem, the hype that came with the launch seems to have gone extinct. Additionally, its effect on SHIB was almost non-existent.

Even though the project has the support of Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the team made sure that they did not only rely on the influence of external forces. The Dogecoin community, in contrast, heavily looks up to Elon Musk and Twitter payment support.

Shiba Inu tried to be independent of the Vitalik backing in many aspects, especially in the burning of its tokens. Yes, it is noteworthy to mention that Vitialik did impact the decision, but SHIB seems to have found its own path.

The goal of the burning mechanism is to help sustain the meme coin market value. This is done by sending some of the supply to dead wallets. And at press time, the total SHIB burnt exceeded 410 trillion, with 7.26 million burned in the last 24 hours.

Source: Shibburn

DOGE’s edge and the emergence of an “impostor”

However, Dogecoin has a major advantage over Shiba Inu. Doge has its own blockchain unlike Shiba Inu, which operates on the Ethereum blockchain. Also, Dogecoin’s market cap is almost twice as that of Shiba Inu. This makes it the eighth-largest cryptocurrency in market value.

While DOGE’s market cap was $10.89 billion at press time, SHIB’s stood at $5.82 billion. The market capitalization here considers the circulating supply of a coin and its value into consideration.

Source: Santiment

Though Dogecoin has a greater market cap than Shiba Inu, the latter has a bigger circulating supply. 

Surely, investors expect DOGE and SHIB to perform excellently when this market condition exits its final stage. However, there is no guarantee of which would outperform the other.

How much are 1,10,100 DOGEs worth today?

In fact, there is a new meme in town—the frog-themed PEPE. This token recently reached a $100 million market cap and surpassed SHIB’s trading volume. And since its tremendous surge within a few days, a sizable part of the market has tipped it to give DOGE and SHIB a run for their money.

Meanwhile, it is important to remember that several factors impact the performance of an ecosystem or token. The fact that both cryptocurrencies contribute immensely to market liquidity and excelled in one cycle is no guarantee that there will be a repeat.