Shiba Inu is not the only crypto to have raised concerns about high ownership concentration. Bitcoin and Ethereum have equally come under attack in the past.
Shiba Inu, an Ethereum-based altcoin or meme coin, rose to popularity in 2021 after it was announced to be a Dogecoin killer. Its price surged considerably, and according to reports, it was the most viewed coin with 188 million views in 2021. This was more than 43 million views than Bitcoin. Though the meme coin is just around 16 months old, it has risen to become the 14th largest crypto by market cap as ranked by CoinMarketCap. According to WhaleStats, a firm that aggregates data on the top list of investors on various crypto platforms, Shiba Inu has recorded an increased holder number in the last few days. Its holder counts has surged to 1,185,135. On February 18, Shiba had a total wallet of 1,180,140. The report further disclosed that the largest 1000 ETH wallets hold 13,845,082,253,056 SHIB tokens ($2.2 billion).
It was further observed that the largest ETH wallet owners have about $1,281,204,323 worth of SHIB. This makes up 14.6% of their total holdings. 54,116,442,548 tokens were the average amount held in these wallets. It is worth noting that Shiba was not the only token held in large amounts in these ETH wallets. According to the reports, FTX tokens had the biggest USD value. Ethereum wallets are holding 15.78% of FTT tokens. This amounts to $1,350,883,037 in FTT. 34.289 million FTT tokens is the average amount held in the largest 1000 Ethereum wallets.
Research led to the discovery that whales were more interested in particular group of assets. MANA, LINK, FTT, and MATIC were in the top 10 list of assets commonly purchased by whales. The top thousand investors apart from holding a large sum of Ethereum also hold “$279,165,163 worth of MANA, $176,091,813 in MATIC and an equivalent of $161,532,342 in LINK.” Dogecoin is another meme coin that has risen to prominence in recent time. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has given a new meaning to the meme coin by vowing to send it to space.
Late last year, the Shiba whales’ wallets were said to have accumulated billions. This came under serious scrutiny.
“Legitimate crypto is fully transparent about transactions, code, and other matters – but is usually opaque about matching transactions to individuals,” said Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who also writes for Bloomberg Opinion. “This is the opposite of the banking system, which is opaque about everything except personal identification,” he added.
Shiba Inu is not the only crypto to have raised concerns about high ownership concentration. Bitcoin and Ethereum have equally come under attack in the past.
Excellent John K. Kumi is a cryptocurrency and fintech enthusiast, operations manager of a fintech platform, writer, researcher, and a huge fan of creative writing. With an Economics background, he finds much interest in the invisible factors that causes price change in anything measured with valuation. He has been in the crypto/blockchain space in the last five (5) years. He mostly watches football highlights and movies in his free time.
