There was a time when people proudly called Shiba Inu the “Doge Killer” The hype was insane, the community was massive, and everyone believed SHIB would someday flip $DOGE.
Even today, development is still happening, tokens are being burned, and holders are increasing every single month. But the big question is if everything looks positive… why isn’t the price going up?
Recent Developments and Their Impact
Recently, Shiba Inu burn rate jumped by more than 2,700%, and over 4.7 million SHIB tokens were destroyed. The total number of holders has crossed 1.54 million, which shows the community is still growing strong. On top of that, Shiba Inu also partnered with Solana-backed AI security company ARLO to strengthen the Shibarium ecosystem’s security.
Sounds great, right? But despite so many positive updates, the price keeps going down instead of up. Why?
Historical Context: The Rise and Fall of Shiba Inu
In the last bull run, Shiba Inu’s market cap was almost half of Dogecoin’s. Doge was around $80 billion, and Shib touched around $41 billion at that time, people genuinely believed Shib would surpass Doge.
But today, Doge is still at $30 billion, while Shib has fallen to just $6 billion. The gap between them has widened by almost 5 times.
The Role of LEASH and BONE Tokens
Like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu was also launched as a completely decentralized, community-driven project. At launch, 50% of its supply was locked on Uniswap as liquidity, and the remaining 50% was sent to Vitalik Buterin. Out of that, Vitalik donated 10% to India’s Covid Relief Fund and burned the remaining 40%. This means the Shiba team had 0 personal tokens.
And this is where things get interesting — because the team couldn’t dump SHIB, they launched two new tokens — $LEASH and $BONE.
They marketed these as “utility” tokens.
$LEASH had limited supply and was promoted as an “exclusive access” token — giving holders early entry to future projects like NFTs or Metaverse land sales.
$BONE, on the other hand, was introduced for governance on ShibaSwap and as the gas token for Shibarium. In short, the team gave these tokens a big “utility” story to attract buyers.
But if you look at them today — both LEASH and BONE are down over 99.9% from their all-time highs.
$BONE dropped from $40 to $0.11, and $LEASH crashed from $5,700 to almost nothing. This clearly shows how the team rug-pulled their own community — not through SHIB, but through these side tokens.
Lack of Community Support and Real Value Creation
The biggest problem is — the Shiba team never truly supported its community.
When community members started independent burn projects or businesses to reduce SHIB supply, the team ignored and sidelined them. Projects like Burn Channels, ShibArmyStrong, and K9 Finance — all were community-driven efforts that got no support.
Why? Probably because if the community succeeded in those projects, people wouldn’t care about BONE or LEASH — and the team couldn’t profit. Now, some people talk about Shibarium and the Shiba Metaverse.
But honestly, neither of these has added real value to SHIB.
Metaverse land sales and NFTs only made money for the team — not for SHIB holders. There’s been no real burn mechanism, no solid utility, and no ecosystem growth. The team simply focused on extracting as much profit as possible — not on building real value for holders. If they had kept their promises and maintained trust, SHIB would’ve been in a very different position today.
Shiba Inu as an Independent Meme Coin
The only good thing is that Shiba Inu is still 100% decentralized. The developers don’t have control over SHIB’s supply or price — they can’t manipulate it even if they want to. But since the trust between the team and community is already broken, SHIB should now be treated like an independent meme coin, just like Dogecoin.
However, it’ll take time for the community to fully shift its mindset. If you look at the charts they reflect exactly this sentiment.
Since the 2022 bear market bottom, Doge has gone up almost 8x, and even now it’s about 4x higher than its lows. Meanwhile, $SHIB is still hovering around its 2022 bottom. It completely missed the rally.
Price Predictions and Potential Scenarios
Now let’s talk about price predictions.
If you still believe SHIB can hit ₹1 or $1 — please, watch my earlier video where I’ve explained the full math behind why that’s not possible with the current supply.
For 2025 and beyond, if the sentiment doesn’t recover, SHIB might face a slow decline — maybe even towards death.
And no, this isn’t negativity or FUD — this is just data.
It’s easy to say “SHIB will go 5x or 10x again,” and show some old bullish chart for likes and views. But I prefer being honest rather than spreading fake hope. Still, there’s one positive sign — a potential Golden Cross forming on SHIB’s chart.
A Golden Cross happens when a short-term moving average crosses above a long-term moving average — signaling that short-term buyers are becoming stronger.
The last time this happened, SHIB pumped over 30%. So if the market sentiment improves even slightly, SHIB could easily remove one zero again.
Advice for Holders and New Investors
So now there are two types of people.
First, existing holders:
You don’t need to panic sell. SHIB is still a strong and widely distributed project, and it’s not going anywhere overnight. If Bitcoin dominance drops and altcoins start pumping, SHIB will also get its moment.
Second, new investors:
If you had to choose between two meme coins — one backed by Elon Musk and one backed by a team with two failed side tokens — which would you pick?
Conclusion: Hope vs. Data
That’s the question. At the end of the day, this is crypto, anything can happen. Maybe tomorrow, the community comes together, burns billions of tokens, and SHIB skyrockets again.
But that’s hope, not data and personally, I prefer to trust data and history over hope when it comes to investments.