As of the latest data from CoinMarketCap, Shiba Inu (SHIB) has slipped to the 19th spot in terms of market capitalization. This drop can be attributed to the impressive 2.42% gain that Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) achieved over the past week, catapulting its market cap to $4.43 billion during this timeframe.
On the flip side, SHIB managed to secure a modest 1.83% increase, yet its market cap lagged behind at $4.40 billion at the time of this report. It’s worth noting that a cryptocurrency’s market cap is typically influenced by its value and circulating supply.
A Growing Ecosystem but a Disappointing Token Performance
The year 2023 has proven challenging for the memecoin SHIB, with a Year-To-Date (YTD) decline of 12.75%. This performance comes as a surprise given the earlier optimism surrounding Shiba Inu.
One source of this optimism was Shibarium, a layer-2 network within the Shibarium ecosystem, which operates on the Ethereum (ETH) network. Although the ecosystem has been launched, it fell short of the lofty expectations, resulting in minimal price movement for SHIB.
Furthermore, prospects for a quick recovery for Shiba Inu appeared bleak, with market sentiment echoing this sentiment. According to Santiment, SHIB’s weighted sentiment over the last 30 days had dropped to -0.806 at the time of writing. This weighted sentiment metric takes into account the unique social volume related to how the market perceives a cryptocurrency.
During the same period, activity on the Shiba Inu network declined significantly. The number of active addresses, which stood at 103,600 on September 1st, had dwindled to 72,300 at the time of this update. This reduction in activity indicated a reluctance among market participants to engage with the Shiba Inu network, leading to reduced speculation around the SHIB token.
Potential for Buyer Intervention
From a technical standpoint, SHIB could either continue consolidating or face a downtrend, mainly due to the Exponential Moving Average (EMA). As of this report, the 20 EMA (represented in blue) had crossed below the 50 EMA (represented in yellow), signaling a bearish bias and suggesting that sellers have maintained control since August 30th.
However, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) was at 49.17, hinting at a growing buying momentum. Should the RSI surpass the 50.00 threshold, it might lead to an increase in SHIB’s price, potentially wresting control from sellers.