Key facts
- Shiba Inu (SHIB) price increased by approximately 36% on Sunday.
- The token's market capitalization grew by roughly $1 billion in one day.
- Daily trading volume for SHIB reached its highest in months at nearly $380 million.
- South Korean traders on the Upbit exchange are believed to be fueling the rally.
- Approximately $6 million in SHIB short positions were liquidated.
Shiba Inu (SHIB) experienced a significant price surge of approximately 36% on Sunday, reaching $0.0000057 and adding about $1 billion to its market value. This rally occurred without any apparent fundamental catalyst or announcement from the project's layer-2 network, Shibarium. The token's market capitalization is now near $3.4 billion, with daily trading volume approaching $380 million, marking its highest turnover in months. Data suggests that traders on South Korea's Upbit exchange, particularly the SHIB/KRW trading pair, are the main force behind the move, accounting for over a tenth of global volume and trading at a slight premium. This pattern aligns with South Korean traders' known tendency to drive speculative rallies in volatile assets. The price increase was followed by liquidations of short positions, totaling around $6 million across approximately 2,300 traders, though the size of these liquidations is insufficient to explain the magnitude of the rally. In contrast, other memecoins like Dogecoin saw more modest gains, indicating the surge was specific to SHIB rather than a broader memecoin rotation. Shiba Inu was launched in August 2020 as an Ethereum token by an anonymous developer known as Ryoshi, initially positioned as a competitor to Dogecoin with no underlying product. While the project has since developed Shibarium and a broader ecosystem, SHIB's price remains significantly below its 2021 peak and is largely driven by retail sentiment.