The shiba inu (SHIB) token continued its astonishing ascent in the cryptocurrency markets, surging 70% over the past 24 hours to a reported market capitalization of over $39 billion.
SHIB’s market value now rivals the stock-market value of the trading platform Robinhood (HOOD), at $30 billion. SHIB has also bounded over European banking giants Societe Generale ($28 billion) and Deutsche Bank ($26 billion).
That said, SHIB’s market cap is far more likely to hit the doghouse at a moment’s notice. Only time – often of short duration in the wild world of crypto – will tell.
Read more: Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB): A Beginner’s Guide 2021
As of press time, the cryptocurrency was changing hands at a minuscule $0.00007857, according to CoinGecko. Earlier in the day, the SHIB price hit an all-time high of $0.0000763. On a year-to-date basis, the price has jumped 40-fold.
The rise in the price of SHIB, named after the same dog breed that inspired the joke cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOGE), came as a petition “designed to kindly request of Robinhood to please list shiba inu coin to trade” circulated on the website Change.org.
“The focus on the cryptoverse was supposed to be on Ethereum 2.0 and a steady wave of [b]itcoin ETF investments, but the retail market has become fixated on shiba inu,” Edward Moya, senior markets analyst at the foreign-exchange brokerage Oanda, wrote Wednesday in a daily email update.
CoinDesk’s traffic numbers would also bear this out.
Robinhood conference call
On Tuesday, Wall Street analysts peppered Robinhood executives on a conference call with questions as to when the company consider listing additional cryptocurrencies on its platform, according to a transcript.
“We’re hearing from customers that they want more coins,” CFO Jason Warnick said during the earnings conference call. “We’re being, you know, very mindful and diligent in this space. It’s evolving from a regulatory perspective. There’s been a number of questions raised about coins on other platforms being potentially unregistered securities.“
He added: “We think it’s the right thing, not just for shareholders and for the company, but also for customers to make sure that we, you know, apply the same kind of diligence to any new coins. … We do hear our customers and they want more features, and so we’re going to be working, you know, as fast as we can with the right balance of safety and compliance to make sure that we don’t make missteps here.”
Twitter was replete this week with speculation that Robinhood might accede to the pressure.
Tomorrow we will see shiba on Robinhood ✌🏼 #SHIB #1CentDreamShib pic.twitter.com/Ah2DVxudEy
— Shib (@ShibaArmyyyyy) October 24, 2021
Some analysts fret the sudden interest in SHIB might be an indication of frothy speculation and that a crash in the token’s value might lead to a broader retreat from cryptocurrency markets.
The SHIB token’s value surpassed that of dogecoin earlier Wednesday, according to most data sources.
Earlier this year, a frenzy of speculation in DOGE preceded a price slump in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that lasted several months.
“SHIB, also known as a ‘dogecoin killer,’ runs on Ethereum, but the use case argument isn’t quite there,” Oanda’s Moya wrote. “Shiba inu headlines are not the news that is needed to help drive crypto growth to the rest of Wall Street that is still hesitant on cryptocurrencies.“
Read more: SHIB Flippened DOGE With $160M in ‘Smart Money’ Backing Latest Pump, Blockchain Data Shows
