Cryptocurrency Shiba inu pops 30 percent after listing on Kraken exchange
Shiba inu, the meme cryptocurrency inspired by Dogecoin, shot up by nearly 30 percent on Tuesday after it was listed on the popular Kraken exchange.
Buyers were able to trade the China-based coin against the US dollar and the euro on Tuesday — a milestone that capped a record year.
Kraken, which is US-based, is the fourth-largest crypto exchange in the world.
Shiba inu, which currently has a market cap of more than $30 billion, has seen its value increase by 63,740,000 percent year-over-year.
It recently surpassed more than 1 million wallet holders, according to The Motley Fool. Its listing on Kraken means it will become available to an even larger pool of investors and speculators.
But each coin could still be had for cheap. As of midday on Tuesday, SHIB was trading at $0.000049. That means you would have to buy 20,408 coins in order to equal the value of a penny.
In early November, Kraken pledged to list Shiba inu if a Twitter post generated more than 2,000 likes. The post ended up being liked more than 60,000 times.
Various online petitions have generated hundreds of thousands of signatures demanding that the cryptocurrency be made available on trading platforms like Robinhood.
Shiba inu rose on Tuesday while other cryptocurrencies either reported modest gains or even lost some of their value.
Well-known cryptocurrency Bitcoin was down nearly 2 percent on Tuesday — trading at $56,823.20 per coin. Earlier this month, it hit record highs surpassing $67,000 per coin.
Its rival, Ethereum, rose by slightly more than 2 percent. It was trading at $4,546 per coin.
Shiba inu is a meme coin, or a cryptocurrency that originated from an internet meme.
It follows in the footsteps of Dogecoin, which at first was dismissed as a joke before investors began to take it seriously.
In May, Dogecoin saw its value surge by more than 7,000 percent in a short period of time — making it and other meme coins attractive to investors.
Elon Musk sent the value of Dogecoin surging after he tweeted about it.
Shiba inu, which is the name of an ancient Japanese breed of dogs, is considered an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency that was aimed at being the main alternative to Dogecoin.
It was launched in August of last year by an anonymous entity known as Ryoshi.
The founders chose the Ethereum blockchain as the host for Shiba inu because it provided security and structure while keeping the currency decentralized.
Over the past few months, SHIB has steadily added to its value, gaining more than 500 percent.
After the coin was listed on Kraken, a crypto whale known as Gimli bought 24.8 billion SHIB tokens for approximately $1 million, according to Business Insider.
“Shiba Inu is a classic meme token, so we can expect rapid ups and downs of its price, as well as fluctuations with huge amplitude,” said Zach Horn, vice president at ADAcash, a reward-staking project for the cardano network.
Cardano is a public blockchain platform that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions with Ada, its internal cryptocurrency.
Horn said that Shiba inu could see an even higher spike in its value if mainstream platforms like Robinhood start to list it.
“If they support shiba, then we may see new price records,” he said.
“However, there is a great risk that exchanges will be under pressure from regulators, whose position in relation to such coins is usually prohibitive,” Horn added.
