While a slew of DeFi tokens are surging in value, the ‘Dogecoin Killer’ Shiba Inu has topped the Ethereum network in terms of gas usage, suggesting a strong connection between the two.
Earlier yesterday, SHIB (the official Twitter account for the SHIBA ecosystem) announced that Shiba Swap had gone live. Shiba Swap is a decentralized exchange developed by the anonymous Shiba Inu team, which also allows traders to stake their SHIB tokens and be rewarded later.
Ever since, Shiba’s trading volume has been soaring, as is evident from the ethereum gas tracker. Yesterday, the ShibaSwap contract topped the list in terms of transaction fees, followed by the Shiba Migrator in 2nd and the actual Shib token in 5th. Meanwhile, xSHIB rested at #6, and LEASH token stood at #17 – all tokens associated with the Shiba Inu ecosystem.
Like many major events within the crypto market, Shiba is not moving in isolation: A slew of other DeFi coins are rising in price alongside the launch of the exchange, possibly due to the excitement surrounding it. While Uni swap recently rose by 11%, Aave and Compound recently jumped by over 20%. The most significant price increase was seen in KuCoin, which surged by 42% within just a day.
Shiba Inu quickly gained traction in May, carried by the wave of excitement surrounding Dogecoin’s price surge above $0.7 that same month. Its popularity spread to some of its successor meme-coins bearing the face of a dog, including Shiba Inu, a coin named directly after the actual breed of the famous “Doge.”
The Shiba Ecosystem actually consists of three tokens: SHIB, LEASH, and BONE. Each token serves a different function related to the newly launched Shiba Swap exchange, with nothing to justify their evaluation as a unique digital asset beforehand.
However, Ben Casselin, head of research and strategy at AAX, explained why he does not take the meme token lightly:
“Rather than simply dismissing the hype outright, it’s important to realize that what we’re seeing is the mass movement of traders new to crypto moving into the space.”