SHIB faces ETF exclusion as price slides; Shibarium activity dips
Shiba Inu (SHIB) underperformed again as multiple catalysts came in mixed-to-bearish form. This week, Rakuten Wallet (Rakuten Group) added a physical SHIB “Real Coin” to its lineup, but traders looking for a major exchange-traded fund (ETF) launch were disappointed: T. Rowe Price’s crypto ETF went live without SHIB as an underlying asset.
In the US, Arkham said the government transferred about $250,000 worth of seized SHIB from FTX and Alameda Research. The report indicates the funds will likely be used for repayment in the FTX case.
On-chain and ecosystem signals also weakened. Shibarium, Shiba Inu’s scaling layer-2, has reportedly fallen from millions of daily transactions to only the hundreds. Separately, SHIB’s token burn rate dropped 54% over the past week, suggesting lower network participation.
Price action reflects the pressure. SHIB is around $0.000004078 (CoinGecko), down about 17% over the past month and roughly 95% below its late-2021 all-time high. Market cap has slipped under $2.5B, and SHIB has traded around a leadership change among meme coins.
Despite the bearish backdrop, community participation showed resilience: the number of SHIB wallets reportedly jumped by ~75,000 in one day, reaching nearly 1.7 million.
For traders, the near-term focus is whether ecosystem downticks (Shibarium activity, burn rate) persist while SHIB remains excluded from new ETF products—factors that can keep sell pressure elevated even when wallet growth improves.
Bearish
This news flow is skewed bearish for SHIB because multiple direct demand/attention channels weakened at the same time: (1) SHIB was excluded from a newly launched T. Rowe Price crypto ETF—historically, ETF product inclusion often triggers speculative inflows and improves narrative support; exclusion removes that catalyst. (2) Ecosystem indicators deteriorated: Shibarium transactions reportedly collapsed to the hundreds and the SHIB burn rate fell 54%, both of which typically signal reduced usage and lower deflationary pressure.
The US government transfer of seized SHIB from FTX/Alameda adds additional overhang risk. Even if the stated intent is repayment, market participants often front-run potential sell pressure when large government-held balances could be liquidated over time.
Offsetting factor: wallet growth to ~1.7M suggests community retention, which can limit downside and fuel quick rebounds. However, similar past meme-coin episodes show that holder growth alone rarely offsets sustained reductions in activity/escrow supply expectations. Net effect: higher probability of continued downward momentum in the near term, with a longer-term requirement for renewed network usage and clearer market catalysts (e.g., SHIB regaining ETF-related attention) to turn the trend.