Both Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) have been two of the most popular cryptocurrencies this year, in large part due to the incredible rallies they’ve produced.
Both cryptocurrencies, which have been dubbed ‘meme coins,’ have attracted several speculators experiencing fear of missing out, which is what led to their insane growth, but what also led to a significant selloff for each as well.
Because the two are both the most popular meme coins, and because Shiba Inu is the type of dog breed on Dogecoin’s logo, the two have attracted many of the same investors and many look at the two cryptocurrencies as substitutes.
However, the two are much more different than you think. For starters, Dogecoin is a coin, whereas Shiba Inu is a token on Ethereum’s network. So which is the better investment? And can Shiba Inu finally surpass Dogecoin’s market cap?
Dogecoin
In order to understand which cryptocurrency offers more long-term potential, we have to understand what each asset does. First and most importantly, Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency coin, which is used for making payments on the Dogecoin blockchain.
Although Dogecoin is completely different than Shiba Inu, it’s similar in a lot of ways to Bitcoin, which is also used for making payments on the Bitcoin blockchain network.
Dogecoin actually has several similarities to Bitcoin. But because it’s newer, it also has some advantages. For starters, block times are much faster, meaning you don’t have to wait as long for transactions to be verified.
In addition to these advantages, though, there are also drawbacks of Dogecoin. One of the biggest benefits of Bitcoin is that its supply is fixed. This is part of the reason investors believe it’s a great hedge against inflation. In addition, it’s also why Bitcoin should continue to increase in price over time, especially as mining rewards are periodically halved.
So at the moment, Shiba Inu seems to have more uses, as Dogecoin’s only real use case is to be used for making payments, which, as the price continues to decline over the long run, is not the most attractive option for investors, and likely the reason the cryptocurrency continues to lose value.
Shiba Inu
The fact that Shiba Inu is a token on Ethereum’s blockchain actually makes it much less unique than Dogecoin. There are tonnes of tokens on Ethereum’s network, and launching one of these tokens is quite simple and easy to do. So that’s something crucial to consider. However, Shiba Inu does actually offer some use cases for it.
First, some companies are now deciding to accept it as payment. However, more importantly, it can be used for staking and earning passive income through plenty of popular DeFi apps.
But just because there are things you can do with Shiba Inu doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s worth a long-term investment.
Can Shiba Inu surpass Dogecoin’s market cap?
Over the last few days, Dogecoin’s losses have accelerated, while Shiba Inu has outperformed it, leading to the two cryptocurrencies becoming extremely close in price.
At the time of writing, Dogecoin was the 12th most valuable cryptocurrency at a market cap of US$23 billion, while Shiba Inu sat one spot back with a market cap north of US$20 billion.
So, while Shiba Inu does have more momentum at the moment, it’s anyone’s best guess where these two cryptocurrencies go from here. Although both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu do have some use cases, there is hardly anything proprietary about their technology or what they offer investors. Therefore, it’s difficult to speculate where the price might move in 2022.
On the other hand, you have cryptocurrencies like Matic (Polygon), which is one spot behind Shiba Inu, and is one of the highest-potential projects you can invest in today.
In fact, if you exclude the stable coins, you could make a better case to invest in any of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, rather than speculating on meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
So, although Shiba Inu has been catching Dogecoin lately, it’s more due to Doge’s underperformance. Therefore, if you want to invest in cryptocurrencies, you’re much better off forgetting speculative assets like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, and instead, finding high-potential projects that you can confidently commit to for the long haul.
