Why Is Shiba Inu Suddenly Skyrocketing?

SHIBA INU (SHIB), a meme coin, has soared over 760% so far on a seven-day trailing basis — emerging as the cryptocurrency with the highest gains in the period, according to CoinMarketCap data.

What Happened: SHIB has skyrocketed 768.91% in a seven-day period and was trading 1.01% over 24 hours higher at $0.00001525 at press time on Sunday night.

See also: How to Buy Shiba Inu (SHIB)

SHIB claims it has been nicknamed “Dogecoin Killer.” In terms of weekly gains, it left behind Dogecoin (DOGE), which rose 46.92% in the period and was trading 15.4% lower at $0.56 at press time.

DOGE is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, while SHIB, a new coin, has already reached the no. 30 spot in the list of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization as arranged by CoinMarketCap.

See Also: How to Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)

On Sunday, Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk joked in a “Saturday Night Live” skit that DOGE was a “hustle.”

The apex cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), traded 0.003% lower at $58,716.04 at press time.

Why It Matters: SHIB, an ERC-20 token, has locked 50% of its total supply to Uniswap (UNI) and the remaining 50% was burned to Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin, according to the project’s website.

ETH traded 1.88% higher at $3,911.36 at press time. The coin hit a new all-time high of $3,981.26 on Sunday.

See Also: Dogecoin But On Ethereum Blockchain? renDOGE Hits All-Time High

A number of DOGE look-alikes have thrived riding on the coattails of the Shiba Inu-themed coin. These include SHIB and Weed Doge (WOGE).

https://t.co/4Gck2SjsLS

— Shib (@Shibtoken) May 9, 2021

A token called, Doge Killer (LEASH), was up 131.2% at press time at $3,220.08. The coin has risen 344.40% in a seven-day period. Notably, SHIB and LEASH are from the same stable of decentralized meme tokens.

Akita Inu (AKITA) meanwhile, has risen 461.39% in a week and was up 37.5% at press time at $0.00000694.

Read Next: Shiba Inu And 9 Other Dogecoin Inspired Cryptocurrencies You Should Know About