I just reviewed the history of Shiba Inu, and it's quite fascinating to see how a simple tweet from Elon Musk completely changed the fate of this token.

It all started on March 14, 2021, when Musk posted that he was getting a Shiba Inu. Although it seemed like a joke about a dog, that hashtag made it pretty clear he was also talking about the token. The interesting thing is that up to that point, SHIB was virtually invisible in the cryptocurrency markets.

What happened next was brutal. Within months, the price went from 0.5 millionths of a dollar to 34 millionths. But that was just the beginning. By November 2021, Shiba Inu reached all-time highs of 88 millionths. In less than ten months, it had gained over 15,000%. Anyone who entered at that time thought it was the start of something monumental.

But of course, that was a speculative bubble. The crash began at the end of 2021. Over the course of a year and a half, the price fell below 8 millionths, losing more than 90% of its value. And then in 2023, it fell even further. Even the rally at the end of 2023 didn't help much; it only pushed SHIB to 11 millionths before collapsing again.

The curious thing is that Elon Musk stopped talking about Shiba Inu since July of last year, but the price of SHIB remains very closely linked to Dogecoin. When DOGE rises, SHIB generally follows. For example, in March of this year, Dogecoin registered a +140% increase that dragged Shiba Inu along with it.

Now in October, things got interesting again. Dogecoin started to rise by +300% in less than two months, and SHIB also rebounded since September. The price of Shiba Inu returned above 30 millionths, but it’s still far from its November 2021 highs.

The difference between the two tokens is clear. Dogecoin reached its peak in May 2021, while Shiba Inu did so in November. Today, DOGE is only -40% from its all-time high, but SHIB remains at -65%. This suggests that while Dogecoin exhausted its strength when Musk stopped promoting it, Shiba Inu continued for a longer time during that second speculative wave.

Since Elon Musk entered politics, he has stopped doing explicit advertising for most cryptocurrencies. He remains mainly focused on Dogecoin, even naming his new department DOGE. For other similar tokens like Shiba Inu, it seems he has completely ceased any promotional activity.

The reality is that without the massive publicity Musk provided in 2021, it’s difficult for Shiba Inu to record new stellar returns. Additionally, there are now many other memecoins competing for attention. Shiba Inu tried to evolve with its layer-2 Shibarium, but that never made a real difference in the price. Sometimes, a simple tweet from Elon Musk can create a bubble, but building lasting value is a completely different story.