This Top Shiba Inu Catalyst Won’t Be Much Help Going Forward

If you invested in stocks during the coronavirus crash, there’s a good chance you’re sitting on some healthy gains. The benchmark S&P 500 took less than 17 months to more than double from its March 2020 bottom.

But if you decided to put your money to work in cryptocurrencies, there’s a possibility you’ve lapped the stock market many times over. That’s because the aggregate value of digital currencies has soared more than 1,700% over the same time frame to $2.62 trillion. While Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) have led this nominal increase, it’s meme coin Shiba Inu (CRYPTO:SHIB) that’s come out of nowhere to become the 11th-biggest cryptocurrency by market value ($26.4 billion, as of Nov. 19).

Shiba Inu made people millionaires in roughly a year

If you want the definition of life-altering gains, look no further than SHIB tokens, which galloped from a print of $0.00000000051 per token on its debut, Aug. 1, 2020, to $0.00004814, as of this past Friday, Nov. 19. It might be tough to tell with all of the zeroes, but this works out to a gain of 9,439,116%. Put another way, an $11 investment in Shiba Inu coin on Day 1 would have made you a millionaire today. By comparison, the S&P 500 has “only” delivered a total return, including dividends paid, of 29,751% since the beginning of 1965.

There is a laundry list of catalysts that have sent Shiba Inu to the moon. For instance, the fear of missing out (FOMO) has clearly played a role. Cryptocurrency investors have watched Bitcoin return as much as 8,000,000,000% since July 2010 and are therefore more willing to chase skyrocketing crypto tokens even higher.

Elon Musk has done his part, too. Even though Shiba Inu is one of the most searched cryptocurrencies in the U.S., and social media has been utilized as a tool to grow the community, Musk’s tweets regarding Shiba Inu memes, or his recently adopted Shiba Inu-breed dog (Floki), have been a cue for investors to pile into SHIB.

As for something more tangible, Shiba Inu has received a lift from SHIB being accepted for listing on a growing number of cryptocurrency exchanges. More listings mean better liquidity and, likely, a bigger community. Likewise, the launch of decentralized exchange ShibaSwap in July has improved liquidity and given hodlers the ability to stake their coins. This should ultimately encourage longer hold periods.

This key catalyst can’t be counted on to push SHIB higher

But there’s another catalyst that’s perceived to have played a huge role in Shiba Inu’s ascent: Coin burn.

Most folks are probably familiar with share buyback programs instituted by publicly traded companies. Under a share repurchase program, a company uses its cash to buy back some of its shares and take them out of circulation. This reduces the remaining number of shares outstanding. Ideally, this…