The first week of 2026 was pretty wild for Shiba Inu (SHIB). The popular canine coin rode a 35% upswing along with other blue-chip meme coins, driven by demand. According to Santiment, SHIB’s crypto whales have indulged themselves in frequent Shiba Inu trading so far this week, sparking a 111% upswing in transactions beyond $100K.
Bulls Gain Balance, Enterprise Money Floods In
This has boosted Shiba Inu’s price to $0.00000969 on Monday, but the campaign towards the $0.0000100 target was halted with the help of a 6% market correction. Since Santiment confirmed the large-player capital rotation into major-cap meme coins, Shiba Inu’s bounce back now heavily relies on buying power from the largest investors.
Shiba Inu’s Balance Of Power (BOP), a key metric in understanding whether bears or bulls are leading the charge, has just flipped back to 1. This figure indicates that Shiba Inu’s bulls are trying to regain momentum, but driving up the price doesn’t come as an easy task, considering Shiba Inu’s latest statistics on Derivatives markets.
What’s Going On Behind The Scenes For SHIB
Despite a close gap of $34K, short-selling crypto players had outshone the Shiba Inu price longs, who took in $284K in excessively-leveraged position liquidations. These daily liquidations reflect on SHIB’s Spot price with Thursday’s correction still going on, as the Bull Bear Power (BBP) metric confirmed bearish dominance on SHIB’s price charts.
With regulations easing & institutions embracing crypto at an unprecedented level, Shiba Inu’s growth in 2026 will rely on adoption, especially if SHIB eventually becomes the second meme coin to gain an ETF listing.
While Dogecoin’s (DOGE) fans are enjoying the bi-folded DOGE ETF submission of Grayscale’s GDOG & Bitwise’s BWOW, Shiba Inu’s progress in the exchange-traded fund (ETF) field revolves around T. Rowe’s crypto basket, including SHIB on the $1.7 trillion asset manager’s ETF red carpet. Previously, SHIB Army’s also initiated a petition for a standalone SHIB ETF.
Stay in the loop with DailyCoin’s hottest crypto news:
Binance Launches Perpetual Contracts on Gold and Silver
Flare Connects XRP To Hyperliquid Via Breaking Listing
People Also Ask:
Santiment data shows a 111% week-on-week increase in transactions over $100,000, driven by institutional and high-net-worth players repositioning into SHIB’s deep liquidity as a high-beta meme play for the 2026 cycle.
Mixed – the surge signals returning big money and potential accumulation, but SHIB ranks only #10 among major memes (behind FLOKI’s 950% and PEPE’s 620%), and retail interest remains low.
Per Santiment, memes dominate whale growth lists: #1-3 and #10 are meme projects. SHIB’s 111% is solid but trails leaders, highlighting its established liquidity drawing pros over pure hype plays.
