Shiba Inu currently faces major challenges that hinder its position as a long-term investment option.
Despite rebounding from last week’s low below $0.000007 to the $0.0000075 range, Shiba Inu suffered a fresh setback over the weekend. As a result, the meme token slipped from 24th to 26th in the global crypto rankings.
Specifically, Canton (CC) and Uniswap (UNI) overtook SHIB, with market caps of $4.83 billion and $4.59 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, Shiba Inu is trading at $0.000007502, up 2.3% in the past 24 hours and 2.6% over the last week.
However, a broader view reveals persistent weakness. SHIB remains down 12.4% over the past 30 days and 64.5% since the start of the year.
Despite this prolonged underperformance, some influencers continue to urge investors to overlook short-term price movements and focus on SHIB’s long-term potential. They argue that the ongoing dip presents an opportunity to accumulate tokens at cheaper rates ahead of a future surge.
Shiba Inu Gradually Losing Its Standing as a Viable Long-Term Investment Option
Contrary to this narrative, current market trends point to a more troubling reality, as SHIB continues to struggle to justify its appeal as a long-term investment.
Low-Impact Burns Fail to Reduce Supply
Notably, Shiba Inu launched in 2020 with an enormous supply of 1 quadrillion tokens. Since then, developers and the community have implemented token burns to cut supply. Nevertheless, SHIB still carries a massive circulating supply of about 589.24 trillion tokens, and the burn campaign — once seen as a key catalyst for long-term price appreciation—has lost momentum.
Previously, the community burn tracker Shibburn reported billions of tokens burned daily. Today, however, burn activity has dropped sharply, with only small amounts sent to dead wallets.
In fact, data from Shibburn shows the burn rate has plunged by 89.96% over the past 24 hours, with just 1.09 million tokens burned in that timeframe. Consequently, the likelihood of meaningfully reducing supply to support a sustained upside remains low.
Shibarium Network Activity Slows
Similarly, when the team launched Shibarium in August 2023 as Shiba Inu’s Layer-2 network, it positioned the platform as a hub for developers building utility-driven projects. In theory, this expansion was expected to boost visibility for SHIB and other ecosystem tokens, thereby accelerating adoption.
In practice, however, outcomes have fallen short. Although a handful of projects have launched on Shibarium, they have yet to achieve meaningful adoption or attract broader market attention. As a result, SHIB and its sister tokens—BONE, LEASH, and TREAT—have seen little benefit from the network’s rollout.
Too Many Unfulfilled Promises
Moreover, as part of its effort to evolve from a meme coin into a utility-driven ecosystem, the Shiba Inu team announced multiple initiatives, including games, a metaverse, and blockchain infrastructure.
While it has successfully launched Shibarium and its decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap, several flagship projects remain incomplete.
Notably, the promise to deliver SHIB: The Metaverse and the SHIB Marketplace by 2024 remains unfulfilled to date. In addition, there has been no meaningful update on the proposed Layer-3 privacy blockchain, which was expected to debut last year.
These repeated delays have weakened investor confidence and made it harder for SHIB to be viewed as a serious long-term project.
Promotion of Non-Ecosystem Tokens
Compounding these issues, some key opinion leaders within the Shiba Inu community have promoted tokens outside the ecosystem. In one widely criticized instance, the @shibtoken X account, often regarded as the project’s official handle with over 3.9 million followers, promoted a Solana-based meme coin called Hachi.
Community members pushed back, arguing that such actions could divert attention and capital from SHIB to unrelated tokens.
Lack of New Utility
Furthermore, despite announcing multiple initiatives, Shiba Inu has yet to deliver utilities with a tangible, measurable impact. As a result, many investors continue to classify SHIB primarily as a meme coin. Even the adoption of existing ecosystem projects remains limited.
Although lead developer Shytoshi Kusama has teased an AI-related initiative, detailed information has yet to emerge. For many observers, the absence of clear, value-generating utility underscores the need for new products that could reposition SHIB as a credible long-term investment.
Team Inefficiencies and Transparency Concerns
Finally, ongoing concerns about the team’s transparency further undermine SHIB’s long-term outlook. Since launch, the core developers have operated under pseudonyms, and even public appearances by Kusama have occurred with his identity concealed. While some community members initially accepted this approach, skepticism has steadily grown.
More recently, communication between the team and the community has deteriorated. Several prominent figures have reduced engagement on X, with some accounts set to private or largely inactive.
Critics have seized on this silence, especially after K9 Finance revealed that the Shiba Inu team stopped responding to requests related to recovering funds lost in the Shibarium exploit.
These unresolved issues significantly weaken confidence in Shiba Inu’s long-term prospects. Unless the team addresses these challenges, SHIB is likely to remain under pressure as investors reassess its long-term viability.
