It may seem silly that some of the wealthiest people in the cryptocurrency space are making their fortunes on the back of meme-based dog coins, but in 2021 that was precisely the case! Memes are like mind viruses that spread across the internet, and the Shiba Inu meme (and corresponding token) dominated 2021.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) provided one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities of our lifetimes surging from relative obscurity to become one of the largest projects in the cryptocurrency space in a matter of months. Despite a recent correction in price, the meme itself and the community surrounding the token show little signs of slowing down.

If you’re interested in learning more about SHIB and potentially investing, you should look into its potential use cases before making your decision. This article will help you do precisely that.

What is Shiba Inu (SHIB)?

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a fun-loving cryptocurrency token based on a dog meme. The token itself is an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum blockchain. Shiba Inu’s white paper (or ‘woofpaper’) was released by an anonymous figure known as Ryoshi in early 2021.

Some have dubbed Shiba Inu “the Dogecoin killer” due to its explosive gains and increasing popularity and dominance in the dog-meme crypto space in 2021. Shiba Inu even briefly passed Dogecoin in total market cap in October 2021, although at the time of writing Dogecoin’s market cap is slightly higher than Shiba Inu’s.

SHIB is considered a more risky and speculative investment, even within the crypto market, however, it has also produced extraordinary levels of wealth in 2021 at it soared from relatively unknown into the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap in a short time.

Meme-tokens are generally rather limited in their real-world utility, however, the explosive growth of this tokens community has allowed for a limited set of use cases which will be examined in this article.

Shina Inu Use Case: Speculation

Shiba Inu’s use case is primarily driven by price speculation. Potential investors who buy SHIB are generally looking to sell the token at a higher price than they purchased it for.

While SHIB is an admittedly risky investment it has panned out well for the majority who have held to this point as the market capitalization has grown from zero dollars to over $19 Billion at the time of writing. It is worth noting though, that recent purchasers have not fared as well since the market cap has dropped by more than 50% from $40 Billion in late October 2021.

Another way to speculate on the price of the SHIB token is to capitalize on its high trading volume. Short-term traders buy and sell tokens using small time intervals such as a few hours to perhaps a few days. One of the primary tools that short-term traders take advantage of is trading volume. A high trading token is more liquid which ensures that traders’ orders will be fulfilled when they place them. At the time of writing SHIB trading volume is still very high with over $1 Billion in trading volume per day, making it one of the more traded tokens on the market.

Shina Inu Use Case: Belonging to a Meme-Based Community

As a meme-based cryptocurrency, there is also a large community of active participants who support SHIB and aim to build an ecosystem around it. Holding SHIB is also a bet on the continued growth of this community as well as a way to participate in it.

Meme-based cryptocurrencies like SHIB rise and fall purely on crowd psychology as opposed to more traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin which are also held for their unique capabilities and features. The popularity of cute dogs in the online space has allowed this meme to spread much faster than most meme-coins.

The SHIB community currently has over 500,000 members who hold or trade Shiba Inu and participate in posting memes about the token online. The community also hosts an incubator for digital art and a charity that makes donations to real-world Shiba Inu dogs in need of help.

Shina Inu Use Case: ShibaSwap (DeFi)

ShibaSwap is a decentralized exchange where users can trade SHIB tokens with other similar cryptocurrencies and earn rewards by staking their SHIB to provide liquidity for other users. It serves as the decentralized finance (Defi) hub of the SHIB universe.

In the spirit of the dog token, features on the platform are represented by dog-related names such as:

Fetch – Migrating other tokens to the platform to earn BONE tokens (the protocols reward token)
Dig – Provide liquidity to the network and earn BONE token rewards
Bury – Stake tokens to earn BONE token rewards

In addition to these three actions, users can also Swap in and out of a select group of tokens such as the SHIB and BONE tokens. Finally, users can check their Bonefolio (dashboard) for relevant data on their current holdings and gain market insights.

At the time of writing ShibaSwap is still quite small however it is growing at a quick pace as more and more users look to engage with the SHIBA ecosystem.

Shina Inu Use Case: Retail Shopping

Some popular crypto-payment platforms have capitalized on Shiba Inu’s popularity lately by adding the SHIB token as an option for users to make payments with. These platforms allow users to utilize their crypto when making payments at major retailers like Amazon and Walmart.

It is estimated that as many as 40,000 stores now accept Shiba Inu via various crypto payment platforms. In addition to this several prominent companies such as NewEgg and AMC have hinted at potentially accepting SHIB directly (rather than through a crypto payment platform) in the future.

If SHIBA can find increased acceptance on crypto payment platforms and from individual stores, retail shopping could become another use case for Shiba Inu to incorporate. This is a potential use case to keep an eye on in the future.

Shiba Inu’s Role in Crypto

SHIBA is a decentralized meme token. More specifically it is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token. This means that it relies and runs on Ethereum and is not a full-fledged cryptocurrency of its own. This naturally limits the potential use cases for such a token, however, SHIB has surprisingly been able to carve out some real-world use cases due to its massive popularity and die-hard fans.

Despite this explosive growth and popularity, SHIB is still a risky, highly-speculative bet (even for a cryptocurrency). If you love dogs and the dog meme and don’t mind relatively large risks, then SHIB could potentially bring you great returns. However, we advise caution and not putting in more than you can afford to lose on any meme-based cryptocurrency with limited practical applications.