Shiba Inu suffers damage in the PEPE-Dogecoin battle; market cap slips below Litecoin

Shiba Inu, at one point, was considered the Dogecoin killer. Despite its relatively strong fundamentals, the cryptocurrency is being sidelined at the moment. This lack of interest is all thanks to the emergence of PEPE, which once again proves that meme coins can always be replaced at any time.

PEPE takes over Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu and Dogecoin were all that meme coin enthusiasts would talk about, with a few mentions of other shitcoins every now and then. However, the market is filled with discussions of just PEPE and Dogecoin presently.

Consequently, Shiba Inu, along with other notable meme coins such as Floki Inu (FLOKI), Bone ShibaSwap (BONE), Dogelon Mars (ELON), and Baby Doge Coin (BabyDoge), are noting consistent declines in price as investors shift their focus to PEPE.

As a result, Shiba Inu has lost nearly $500 million in the span of just two days, bringing its market cap to around $6.2 billion. The 8.07% decline in SHIB registered in the same duration has brought its trading price to $0.00001064. Furthermore, the meme coin ended up losing its spot in the top cryptocurrencies list to Binance USD (BUSD) and Litecoin.

SHIB/USD 1-day chart

PEPE - the April Fools token

While PEPE has taken over the meme coin market over the last few days, its origins actually trace back no more than three weeks. According to trader Crypto Koryo on Twitter, the web domain for the cryptocurrency was registered no earlier than March 30.

However, the token was still not created until April 14 despite its presence on Twitter coming to life around April 4. Further suspicion arose from the fact that even after its creation on April 14, PEPE was first listed on April 16, which the analyst speculates gave insiders/development team time to accrue the token.

Wallets containing nearly 7% of the entire supply of PEPE tokens were recently discovered. The owners of these wallets, suspected to be insiders, amassed millions of dollars worth of unrealized profits following the recent rally. Should any of these whales decide to sell, they could trigger the potential of a crash.

Read more about these whales here - PEPE coin whales suspiciously amass 7% of all supply before 900% rally; threat or conviction?

Looking at the suspicious origins of PEPE and a lifespan shorter than that of a tomato, it seems like the developers launched the meme coin in time to capitalize on the “4/20” phenomenon of April 20, given its ridiculous 420 trillion supply.

Twitter, too has been flagging the project for being a potential scam, suspending its official page twice in the span of 24 hours. Regardless, retail FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) continues to drive investors toward the token, increasing the whales’ profit as the cryptocurrency still stands as an illiquid asset given its market cap of nearly $130 million.