- Dogecoin’s market cap is 2x that of SHIB, despite a notable development with the latter.
- Experts agree that SHIB won’t flip DOGE, but attention may shift from the cryptocurrencies.
Though market participants expect meme coins to skyrocket when other altcoins rise, Shiba Inu [SHIB] and Dogecoin [DOGE], the top two meme coins in the market, failed to be at the forefront of the rally experienced in 2023.
However, the underwhelming performance was not the major issue with the cryptocurrencies. Instead, the debate about Shiba Inu’s ability to surpass Dogecoin arose at different times.
For instance, crypto investor Jake Gagain posted confidently on the 5th of September 2023 that SHIB would flip DOGE in the 2024 cycle.
$SHIB Will Flip $DOGE Next Cycle.
— JAKE (@JakeGagain) September 5, 2023
But opinions alone do not win games in the crypto market. That is why AMBCrypto took it upon itself to evaluate the possibility. At the time of writing, Shiba Inu’s market cap was $6.11 billion.
Dogecoin’s market cap, on the other hand, was more than double that of SHIB at $12.83 billion.
Source: Santiment
Shiba Inu evolves, but Dogecoin does not sleep
One reason why some players think Shiba Inu can flip Dogecoin is because of the changes in the ecosystem. Before the last bull market in 2021, Dogecoin already had evolved into a payment method.
At some point, companies including Tesla, Twitch, and Newegg had it as a payment option.
During that period, Shiba Inu only relied on its community for growth. However, in the last year and a half, Shiba Inu has been developing use cases for its ecosystem. The most notable development is Shibarium.
Shibarium is the Layer-two (L2) network of the Shiba Inu ecosystem, built on the Ethereum [ETH] blockchain. It is important to note that, unlike its counterpart, Dogecoin has its own blockchain.
Shibarium’s development came with some level of hype. It is also one of the reasons some players believe that SHIB’s time to flip DOGE is near.
However, Dogecoin has not been resting on its oars. Furthermore, Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly Twitter) has placed the coin in pole position for increased adoption in 2024.
This is because the X team has plans to integrate a payment system during the year, and Musk’s love for DOGE means that the coin could be an option in the move.
No drama for both in 2024
Should this happen, and Shiba Inu succeeds with its L2 strides, then the battle between both projects might intensify. AMBCrypto decided to speak to some experts about the possibility.
The first person we spoke to was David Kemmerer. Kemmerer is the CEO of CoinLedger, a crypto tax software.
According to Kemmerer, SHIB might make great strides in 2024, but it might not be able to flip DOGE within a year. He said,
“I doubt that we will see it flip DOGE. This is mostly just because of how long each of these coins has been around—SHIB is just not seeing the kind of dramatic growth it would need to overtake a long-standing coin like DOGE in just one year.”
Besides the market cap and use cases, other factors could impact Shiba Inu’s place in 2024. One important factor is the SHIB burn.
The Shiba Inu team introduced the burning mechanism to control the supply of the token and increase its value in the long term.
SHIB fights DOGE for demand
As of this writing, the total number of SHIB burned had crossed 410 trillion, according to information from the Shibburn website. On the 4th of December 2023, Shiba Inu informed its community that it was changing the burning model.
Per the statement, the new mechanism would start in January 2024, noting that the token value will increase.
However, SHIB faces a big hurdle with the strategy when compared to Dogecoin. This is mainly because of its circulating supply. According to CoinMarketCap, the number of SHIB tokens in circulation was 589.54 trillion.
DOGE, despite having an unlimited supply, has 142.43 billion tokens in circulation. Should demand rise at the same rate for both cryptocurrencies, Shiba Inu would find it hard to flip Dogecoin.
However, the price performance of SHIB and DOGE has been similar in 2023.
At press time, DOGE’s price was $0.09. This value represents a 29.14% increase on a Year-To-Date (YTD) basis. SHIB’s price at the time of writing was $0.000010, indicating a 28.33% hike.
Going into 2024, there is a high chance that the cryptocurrencies continue to correlate.
Source: CoinMarketCap
New competition for the former bull market kings
However, Shiba Inu and Dogecoin may not be the meme coins that lead in the 2024 cycle. This is because other memes emerged and outright outperformed bother cryptocurrencies.
For example, frog-themed Pepe [PEPE] increased by 2.253%. Solana-based BONK jumped by 4,560% within the same period. FLOKI, which was late to the 2021 bull rally, also increased by 338%.
These performances led AMBCrypto to ask Gracy Chen what she thought of the meme coin era.
Chen is the Managing Director (MD) of crypto exchange Bitget. According to her, DOGE and SHIB might not enjoy the attention they got in 2021.
She also mentioned that cryptocurrencies like BONK and Dogwifhat [WIF] may have better performances in 2024.
Concerning Shiba Inu, Chen noted,
“It’s unlikely that SHIB will become the leading meme coin in 2024 — to achieve this, it needs at least to double its current market cap of $6 billion. If considering the coin’s price, to surpass DOGE, it would need to grow by 9,000 times.”
The Bitget MD also touched on Dogecoin. According to her, Dogecoin would remain the number one meme coin in terms of market cap in 2024. She gave her reasons, saying that:
“The fact that the world’s richest person still displays the Dogecoin logo in his X profile will continue to promote the coin’s narrative and contribute to its value growth.”
HODLers prefer DOGE but…
Looking at the number of holders, AMBCrypto found out that DOGE dominated SHIB. At press time, the total number of SHIB holders was 1.36 million. DOGE holders count was 4x SHIB at 5.71 million, Santiment’s data showed.
Source: Santiment
It is also important to mention that the number of DOGE holders grew much more than SHIB in 2023. A situation like this suggests that a large part of the market is betting on a better performance for Dogecoin in the coming months.
Realistic or not, here’s SHIB’s market cap in DOGE’s terms
Going into 2024, Shiba Inu may not flip Dogecoin despite some of its recent landmarks.
Considering the current and potential prospects, DOGE may remain the top meme coin per market cap. Shiba Inu may also remain number two. But both projects may need to watch out for the other roaring memes— especially BONK.
