Whales have been steadily accumulating Shiba Inu (SHIB) on non-exchange addresses for the past two months, indicating that institutional investors have confidence in the long-term potential of the coin.
Technical indicators show that there has been a consistent influx of capital into the Shiba Inu ecosystem, while other meme coins struggle to attract institutional investors.
Although Shiba Inu has been trading sideways since the beginning of the year, gaining only 1.18% in the last four weeks, this stability seems to be working in favor of institutional investors who continue to accumulate SHIB in large quantities. Over the past two months, Shiba Inu whales have acquired over 4 trillion tokens and have reduced their selling activities as a long-term bet on the second-largest meme coin.
At the time of writing, SHIB is trading at $0.000009172, with a 3.8% increase in the past day. The price has remained relatively stable over the past month, fluctuating by just 1%.
This prolonged accumulation has attracted wealthy investors who are eagerly purchasing SHIB. According to data from Santiment, since mid-December, the holdings of SHIB whales have increased from 493.42 trillion to 497.11 trillion.
As the whales accumulate tokens, the amount of SHIB held on exchanges has significantly decreased since December 1st, as indicated by the graph below. An increasing amount of tokens held in exchange wallets suggests that holders are preparing to sell, while the opposite is true.
The decrease in exchange-held tokens contrasts with the sharp increase in today’s trading volume, which nearly doubled to reach $146 million.
Earlier this week, Shiba Inu whales swiftly moved 1.6 trillion tokens from Binance, Coinbase, and other major exchanges to unknown addresses, causing a 514% surge in trading volume.
The interest shown by whales in Shiba Inu stands in stark contrast to its rival, Dogecoin. While Dogecoin added over 400,000 new wallets in just two weeks, the majority of these accounts held less than 10 DOGE, and the balance of whale accounts barely changed during that time.
What does the future hold for SHIB?
As the whales provide strong support for SHIB, the overall community is also making significant contributions. According to a data platform, activity on the Shibarium network has surged in recent days. On February 7, new accounts increased by a staggering 621%, bringing the total number of accounts on the Layer 2 network to over 63,300. The total number of addresses now stands at 1.35 million, with total transactions surpassing 338 million.
This growth in Shibarium adoption is crucial for Shiba Inu to evolve beyond a mere meme coin. Unlike Dogecoin, which has made little progress in terms of adoption and relies heavily on the influence of Elon Musk for charitable initiatives, Shiba Inu can become a thriving ecosystem with its own dApps, DeFi platforms, NFTs, DEXes, and more.