- SHIB remains over 90% below its 2021 peak
- Shibarium usage and burn rates are still extremely low
- The roadmap offers upside, but execution risk remains high
A lot of people are asking the same question again: is Shiba Inu worth it right now? At the time of writing, SHIB is trading around $0.0000065, down more than 92% from its 2021 all-time high. That drawdown alone has reignited the “is Shiba Inu dead” narrative across crypto forums, especially as on-chain metrics fail to show a meaningful turnaround.
The frustration isn’t just about price. It’s about momentum. In a market where new meme coins cycle in every few months, SHIB now finds itself defending relevance rather than chasing hype.
Shibarium Usage Remains Weak
Anyone evaluating SHIB in 2026 quickly runs into Shibarium’s numbers. Total Value Locked sits near $1.44 million, and daily transactions are hovering below 7,000. For context, networks like Base process over 2 million transactions per day. That gap is hard to ignore.
The burn mechanism is directly tied to Shibarium usage, which creates a feedback problem. Low activity means low fees, and low fees mean negligible token burns. At the current pace, burning even 10% of total supply would take centuries. That math undercuts the long-running “penny dream” narrative and fuels criticism that the deflation model isn’t working at scale.
The Team Says It’s Still Building
After roughly 50 days of silence, lead developer Shytoshi Kusama resurfaced in late January 2026, signaling that a major build effort is nearing completion. The Q2 2026 roadmap includes a privacy-focused upgrade using Fully Homomorphic Encryption in collaboration with Zama.
If that launch materializes successfully, Shibarium could reposition itself toward privacy-focused DeFi rather than meme-driven speculation. That would meaningfully change the conversation. But if adoption doesn’t follow the upgrade, skepticism will likely deepen. Execution now matters more than messaging.
So Is Shiba Inu Worth It in 2026?
The honest answer is complicated. The token burn math doesn’t currently justify extreme long-term price targets. Shibarium’s adoption remains fragile. And newer meme tokens are competing aggressively for retail attention.
At the same time, SHIB still benefits from brand recognition, deep exchange listings, and a large global community. Those factors matter in crypto, sometimes more than fundamentals in the short term. Whether SHIB is “worth it” depends on whether you believe the roadmap converts into real usage. Until that happens, the project sits in a middle ground — not dead, but not yet reborn either.
