Bankless Times
HomeCompare cryptocurrenciesShiba Inu Vs Dogecoin - Everything You Need to Know

Shiba Inu Vs Dogecoin - Everything You Need to Know

Amala Pillai
Amala Pillai
November 28th, 2023
Why trust us
Advertiser Disclosure

Shiba Inu Vs Dogecoin - Key Differences

Token: SHIB vs DOGE

Date launched: August 2020 vs December 2013

Token type: Memecoin vs Memecoin

Main purpose: Competitor to Dogecoin vs Started as a joke

Circulating supply: 549,095.51T SHIB vs 131.94B DOGE

Most recent market cap: $38,628,330,644 vs $36,069,362,748

Twitter followers: 440,000 vs 2.3 million

Reddit users: ShibArmy - 394k vs Dogecoin - 2.2m

Number of merchants that accept coin: 103+ vs 1900+

About Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu was created in August of 2020 as a spin-off of Dogecoin by a developer pseudonymously known as Ryoshi.

In fact, even the name Shiba Inu comes from the breed of dog featured in the Dogecoin logo.

Shiba is typically referred to as a “memecoin” which can be defined as a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke.

In most cases, these coins have no real use-case outside of speculation by crypto enthusiasts.

Indeed, speculation plays a big role in how these meme tokens perform in the market and the price of Shiba has seen immense growth as a result of cryptic tweets by Elon Musk.

Elon, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is well known for his liking of memes and in particular Dogecoin which he has previously talked about on Saturday Night Live, the American late-night TV show.

Given the similarities between Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, both coins tend to rally whenever Elon Musk tweets about dogs.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1449862940610514954?s=20

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1390550521077977089?s=20

This is perhaps because investors believe Elon is implying that he wants to invest in the coin, and given his wealth and status, that would certainly be a big deal.

However, to the dismay of Shiba holders, Elon recently revealed that he doesn’t own any SHIB which caused the price of the token to plunge before making new highs again.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1452332435266576395?s=20

Another charming feature of Shiba is its incredibly high total supply of tokens: 1,000,000,000,000,000 - which makes the price of each coin incredibly low.

At the time of writing, 1 SHIB token costs around $0.00007056

This means that with just $1 you can own around 14,000 SHIB.

New crypto market entrants who are perhaps unfamiliar with the concepts of market capitalization and total supply figures, tend to be drawn in by the prospect of “what if it goes to $1 per coin” and “if it goes to even 1 cent I’ll be a millionaire” - of course not realizing that at those sort of prices, the market cap of Shiba will be bigger than Bitcoin, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon combined.

Indeed, an unlikely scenario to say the least.

It remains to be seen how the Shiba Inu ecosystem develops over time but for now, it is primarily a vehicle for speculation.

Pros and cons of Shiba Inu

  • One of the most popular memecoins in the world today
  • An easy-to-understand concept that is attractive to many investors
  • Unit bias as a result of high total supply creates alluring prospects for new investors

Best Exchanges to Buy Shiba Inu?

Below you will find our preferred providers to get you started.

Sort by
eToro8.7Visitetoro.com

Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.

Plus500 CFD Broker9.8Visitplus500.com

82% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Pepperstone9.0Visitpepperstone.com

Between 74-89 % of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Eightcap8.8Visiteightcap.com
Webull8.3Visitwebull.com
Coinbase8.4Visitcoinbase.com

Not all financial instruments described on this website may be available for trading on the Plus500 platform. Always consult the Plus500 website at https://www.plus500.com/en/Instruments/ and platform for up-to-date information.

About Dogecoin

Dogecoin is the original memecoin that was created back in 2013 as a joke to make fun of the wild speculation in the crypto markets back then.

Almost ironically, it is that same speculation that has made it a top 10 cryptocurrency by market capitalization today.

Despite its satirical origins, many high-profile figures including Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, and Zhu Su, billionaire CEO of Three Arrows Capital, consider it a legitimate investment.

Many crypto enthusiasts place great importance on the fact that it is the first memecoin to come into existence so there is some level of cultural significance to the project as well.

Dogecoin also has a very high circulating supply which means that like Shiba, it too has a very low price per token.

At the time of writing, 1 DOGE costs $0.27 and has a market capitalization of $35 billion.

Again, new crypto market entrants who are perhaps unfamiliar with token supply mechanisms are drawn in by the idea that the price of DOGE could one day be as high as Bitcoin.

Of course, not realizing that at that price, DOGE would have a market cap much higher than all the money in the world combined.

Despite some other memecoins in the market today, Dogecoin does have some use-cases that make it unique.

For example, back in March of 2021, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks announced that his NBA team would accept Dogecoin as payment for purchasing tickets.

Within days, his franchise became a top merchant for Dogecoin worldwide.

In May of this year, SpaceX announced a mission to the moon funded completely by DOGE, making it the first-ever space mission to be funded by a cryptocurrency.

These are very exciting times for the Dogecoin project and it’ll be interesting to see how the ecosystem develops as time goes on.

Pros and cons of Dogecoin

  • The first memecoin to exist and thus has cultural significance
  • Backed by some of the wealthiest people in the world
  • High token supply makes new crypto entrants think it is “cheap” at current prices

Best Exchanges to Buy Dogecoin?

Our preferred providers can be found below

Sort by
eToro8.7Visitetoro.com

Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.

Plus500 CFD Broker9.8Visitplus500.com

82% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Pepperstone9.0Visitpepperstone.com

Between 74-89 % of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Eightcap8.8Visiteightcap.com
Webull8.3Visitwebull.com
Coinbase8.4Visitcoinbase.com

Changelly7.4VisitChangelly.com
Trading 2128.4Visittrading212.com

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 83% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Not all financial instruments described on this website may be available for trading on the Plus500 platform. Always consult the Plus500 website at https://www.plus500.com/en/Instruments/ and platform for up-to-date information.

What Is the Difference Between Shiba Inu and Dogecoin?

In this section, we will look at the fundamental differences between Shiba Inu and Dogecoin to help you make a more informed decision before investing.

Coin Issuance

Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu has a maximum supply of 1 quadrillion tokens. That is a 1 followed by 15 zeros.

This is programmed into the code however, the real figure is lower as around half the tokens were burned after they were sent to Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum. There are currently around 500 billion SHIB tokens in circulation which makes the price of each token deceivingly low, despite the large market cap.

Dogecoin

Dogecoin does not have a max supply of tokens. In fact, 10,000 new dogecoins are created per 1-minute block. As such, 5 billion new DOGE coins enter circulation each year. New coins are generated through mining.

Transactions, Speed, and Fees

Shiba Inu

Since Shiba Inu is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, this means that SHIB follows the same transaction speeds and fees as other Ethereum projects. When the network is congested, transaction fees can be as high as $50+ so this is something to take into consideration. Transaction speeds are relatively fast, averaging between 12-14 seconds.

Dogecoin

Dogecoin is a fork of Litecoin which in turn is a fork of Bitcoin. In simple terms, forking is when you copy and paste the code from one project and make minor changes. As such, transactions on Dogecoin cost less than $1 (or around 2.5 DOGE) and take 1 minute to complete.

Community Growth

Both of these coins have seen incredible growth in the past year or so in terms of both community size as well as price.

While both started off as merely memecoins with no use-case, more and more features are being developed as time goes on.

According to some sources, over 1900 merchants are now accepting DOGE as a form of payment, compared to around 100 for Shiba Inu.

It’s very easy to be part of a community that supports a coin that keeps going up in price. As such, it’ll be interesting to see how many stick around during bear markets where prices are no longer hitting new highs every week.

Backers and Supporters

Shiba Inu

The creator of Shiba Inu sent half of the token supply to Vitalik Buterin as a way to “burn” the tokens and remove them from circulation. However, this plan somewhat backfired when Buterin decided to sell some of the tokens and donate the money to charity while burning the rest. At the time, the price of SHIB fell over 40% but has since recovered and hit new highs.

Dogecoin

Since DOGE is the original memecoin, it has many prominent backers including Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, Mark Cuban, Snoop Dogg, and Zhu Su, CEO of Three Arrows Capital.

Retail Interest

There is undoubtedly a lot of interest in these memecoins from retail investors. Perhaps this is as a result of rising prices leading to FOMO (fear of missing out) and unit bias rendering inexperienced investors to have unrealistic price expectations.

Mining

Dogecoin can be mined although its profitability will depend on the equipment you use and the price of electricity in your country.

Shiba, on the other hand, cannot be mined and can only be bought on exchanges.

Storage

Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu is an ERC-20 token since it is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. As a result, it can be stored in any wallet that supports Ethereum tokens.

Popular wallets include Metamask and Trust Wallet.

Dogecoin

DOGE can be stored on a number of different wallets including Trust Wallet, MultiDoge, and Ledger hardware wallets.

Risks & Concerns

The risks and concerns related to both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are very similar since they are both memecoins.

Firstly, their use-cases are limited. This is unlike some other coins in the market that provide users with the ability to borrow, lend or earn interest on their assets.

Outside of being vehicles for speculation, both DOGE and SHIB provide limited uses and benefits to users.

Another cause for concern is that top holders for each coin hold a significant amount of the supply.

For DOGE, the top 20 addresses hold nearly 50% of all the tokens and for SHIB this figure is closer to 75%.

This means that the tokens are potentially concentrated in the hands of a few people who can dump their tokens in the market at any time, causing the price to crash significantly.

This is not to say that will happen, but it is something to take into consideration.

Alternatives to Shiba Inu and Dogecoin?

Given the incredible rise of both Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, more and more memecoins are entering the market on a daily basis.

Each one is promising to be the next big thing with little substance to back their claims.

We would stress caution when dealing with memecoins as there are many scams going around looking to capitalize on inexperienced users.

Rule number 1 is to only invest money you can afford to lose.

FAQs

What is the main difference between Shiba Inu and Dogecoin?
Will Shiba Inu beat Dogecoin?

Find Out More About Memecoins

Contributors

Amala Pillai
Senior Content Editor
Amala is custom content and news editor based in London. She is a former financial journalist based in Singapore with 7 years of experience covering a range of business and financial topics. Now she focuses on crypto and macro-economics. She has also covered feature profiles, tech, business politics and ESG— she was the Environment Editor for the Solutions Newspaper, 2016 and worked in an editorial capacity at both News corp (Dow Jones) and JBN. She also has experience as a content creator, strategist and brand editor for various financial institutions and banks.