- Shiba Inu struggles with massive supply and fading hype, making a $1 price dream nearly impossible.
- Dogecoin relies on Elon Musk’s influence, with recent political ties giving it an edge in visibility—if not actual utility.
- Both are high-risk, but DOGE may hold up better short-term; Bitcoin or stocks are safer long-term bets.
After a wild ride in 2024, crypto’s still riding the wave. The total market cap for all coins and tokens shot past $3.9 trillion just after the U.S. presidential election. And a big part of that? President Trump leaned hard into pro-crypto policy on the campaign trail, hinting at fresh regulations, use cases, and more mainstream acceptance.
But among all the chaos and hype, two meme coins are still hanging in the spotlight: Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.
Yep. They’re speculative. Volatile. Questionable in utility. But also… wildly profitable for some.
SHIB ended 2024 up 105%, while DOGE pumped 251%. Not too shabby. So which one (if any) might actually be worth keeping an eye on this year?
Let’s break it down — no fluff, just the real stuff.
The Shiba Inu Story: From $3 to Millions (But That Was Then)
Shiba Inu’s legendary moment came in 2021, when it skyrocketed 45,278,000%. Yeah, no typo there. A $3 bet at the right time could’ve turned into a cool $1 million.
But that hype train didn’t last.
By mid-2022, SHIB had lost over 90% of its value. And despite occasional bounces, it’s still struggling to prove it has any real-world value. According to Cryptwerk, only about 1,000 businesses accept SHIB as payment — most of them small crypto projects, niche online shops, or sketchy gambling sites. Not exactly mainstream adoption.
Developers did try to step things up with Shibarium, a Layer-2 solution that makes transactions faster and cheaper than Ethereum’s mainnet. Nearly a billion transactions have gone through since its launch in 2023 — which sounds impressive, but is still tiny compared to the global 3.4 trillion+ transactions per year.
The Supply Problem
Here’s the elephant in the room: 589.2 trillion SHIB tokens exist. That’s why the price hangs around $0.000012. If it ever hit $1, the total market cap would be… wait for it… $589.2 trillion.
That’s more than all the money and assets in the world. Literally. UBS estimated global wealth at $454 trillion at the end of 2022. So yeah, that $1 dream? Not happening unless we’re in some parallel universe.
The SHIB community is trying to fix this with token burns — sending coins to dead wallets to permanently remove them. And sure, fewer tokens = higher price potential… in theory. But the burn rate would need to be insane to make a dent anytime soon.
Dogecoin: The Meme That Musk Keeps Alive
Dogecoin was the original meme coin — born in 2013 as a joke. Then it somehow blew up into a real thing, peaking at a $90 billion market cap in 2021.
A lot of that hype? Elon Musk.
He’s been shilling DOGE since 2019 with tweets, memes, and even TV appearances. Things really exploded in May 2021, when he hosted Saturday Night Live and did a whole Dogecoin skit. Price hit $0.73… and that was the top. After that, it crashed over 90%, just like SHIB.
The difference? DOGE managed a pretty decent comeback late last year, hitting $0.47 after Trump announced he’d bring crypto front and center — even hinting that Musk would advise his administration.
Then came the most meme-worthy move of all: Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a real initiative aimed at reducing wasteful spending. And yep — he put Musk in charge. Coincidence? Doubtful.
Investors took that as a green light, even if no one actually confirmed that DOGE, the crypto, would be involved. That hype has cooled since — DOGE is now back down to about $0.17.
So Which Meme Coin’s Better? Or Are They Both Just… Noise?
Look, let’s not kid ourselves. Both SHIB and DOGE are high-risk bets with shaky fundamentals. They rely way more on hype than utility.
That said, Shiba Inu has a couple of strikes against it:
- It’s kinda faded out of the spotlight. No new big catalysts. Just slow burns (literally) and dev updates most people aren’t watching.
- The supply is massive, and the burn rate is too slow to fix that in any realistic timeframe.
Dogecoin isn’t perfect either. It has its own supply problem — there’s no hard cap, and more DOGE keeps being minted every year. Forever. But the key difference?
It still has Elon Musk.
Like it or not, that man can move markets with a meme. As long as he’s in the mix — especially with a possible role in the U.S. government — DOGE isn’t going anywhere.
Is that a good reason to invest? Honestly… probably not. But it’s reality.
The Real Move? Maybe Skip ‘Em Both
If you’re looking for long-term upside? SHIB and DOGE are probably not the best bets.
Bitcoin still leads the way when it comes to actual adoption, utility, and store-of-value potential. Even then, BTC is down 22% from its high — so timing matters.
Not into crypto at all right now? That’s fair. With all the volatility lately, traditional stocks might look a lot more attractive. Companies with strong revenue, consistent earnings, and actual products can still offer solid returns — and usually without the meme drama.
