Can Community Alone Sustain a Meme Coin? Shiba Inu's Paradox Explained

The Disconnect Between Loyalty and Price Action

Here’s the puzzle: Shiba Inu maintains a dedicated following despite cratering more than 90% from its peak, yet the community’s devotion shows no sign of translating into price recovery. This contradiction sits at the heart of understanding how meme coins actually survive in today’s market.

Launched in 2020, Shiba Inu has defied typical crypto gravity. While thousands of meme coins have vanished into obscurity, only a handful—including Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) with a circulation market cap of $18.88B and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB)—have maintained positions in the top 100. The difference? Raw community power. The so-called “Shib Army” has proven resilient, with 825,000+ followers on X and an active grassroots Reddit presence keeping the project alive even when fundamentals suggest otherwise.

When Holding Transcends Fundamentals

The evidence is striking. During Shiba Inu’s 2021 peak, on-chain data showed over 100,000 active addresses engaging with the network. Today, that number hovers between 3,000 and 4,500—roughly 96% lower. Yet here’s what matters: holders are still here. Even as prices have fallen nearly 75% over the past year, the shrinkage in active addresses isn’t proportional to the price collapse. These aren’t panic sellers; they’re believers.

Compare this to Chainlink (LINK), a utility-focused token with an $8.60B market cap and far superior use cases. Its active addresses range from 2,500 to 10,000 throughout 2025—a similar or even lower band than Shiba Inu. The key difference: Chainlink’s community consists largely of people who believe in its technical value, not its cultural appeal.

Shiba Inu’s community operates differently. ShibaSwap’s actual adoption remains minimal. The Shibarium Layer 2 network suffered a security incident in September. None of it matters to the core group. Accessibility and belonging—not utility—are the glue holding this ecosystem together.

Near-Term Catalysts That Could Shift Momentum

Two recent developments suggest potential breathing room:

Institutional Gateway Possibility: T. Rowe Price Group included Shiba Inu as an eligible holding in their Active Crypto ETF application (submitted October 22). SEC approval remains uncertain, but inclusion would signal mainstream acceptance and likely trigger speculative inflows.

Derivatives Access Expansion: Coinbase Markets announced perpetual futures trading for Shiba Inu launching December 12 for U.S. customers. Unlike traditional contracts with expiration dates, perpetual futures offer unlimited holding periods, attracting professional traders and potentially increasing volatility—which cuts both ways.

The Harder Reality: Better Alternatives Exist

Sentiment alone cannot build long-term value. Bitcoin (BTC), currently trading at $87.33K, has demonstrated staying power through multiple market cycles. It attracts institutional capital, corporate treasury holdings, and genuine infrastructure investment. Unlike Shiba Inu, Bitcoin has repeatedly erased drawdowns and set fresh all-time highs—not because of community memes, but because of accumulated utility and scarcity.

The same applies to smart-contract platforms. Ethereum (ETH) at $2.91K and Solana (SOL) at $120.53 serve as the actual infrastructure layer where meme coins themselves operate. As blockchain adoption expands into real applications—cross-border payments, institutional settlement, decentralized finance—these platform coins will benefit from fundamental growth, not just speculation.

Shiba Inu exists on these networks. It doesn’t become them.

The Honest Verdict

Shiba Inu will probably persist. The Shib Army is large enough and sufficiently committed to maintain a floor. But persistence isn’t momentum, and momentum isn’t recovery. The probability of Shiba Inu’s price returning to 2021 levels is remote—not impossible, but remote.

For investors with capital to deploy, the more prudent path involves projects with embedded utility and institutional tailwinds. Community is powerful. But community alone cannot permanently defy the gravity of market fundamentals.