Kumar had invested twice in the meme crypto coin – once when it was priced at ₹0.001215 and then when it was at ₹0.002039 a few weeks ago. After the spurt in the last two days, Shiba Inu was trading at around ₹0.005848 Saturday on some crypto exchanges.
Many investors, globally and in India, have seen their risk portfolios rise, riding on the meme coin – a type of cryptocurrency – that jumped 70% on Wednesday and 40% on Thursday, said exchanges.
“We have seen around 35,000 users buying Shiba Inu recently, which accounts for a 385% increase in Shiba Inu investors. Also, the Shiba Inu INR markets saw 5x increase in exchange volume,” said Shivam Thakral, chief executive at cryptocurrency exchange BuyUcoin. BuyUcoin users have invested $58 million in Shiba Inu since the beginning of the current rally.
In all, trading volumes were pegged at about $600 million across platforms in India, said industry trackers.
ET BureauTop exchanges told ET that, unlike earlier, when Indians would only start buying when global rallies were coming to an end, many continued buying the cryptocurrency all through September and October. Meme coins are typically inspired by jokes on social media as was the case with Dogecoin. Now Shiba Inu has become one of the most popular crypto assets globally.
“Meme coins and altcoins could gain investors’ interest if they continue to deliver handsome returns,” said Jay Hao, CEO, OKEx.com, a cryptocurrency exchange.
8th Largest Cryptocurrency
“At the same time, users should be very careful while investing in such cryptos and not put all their eggs in one basket and always diversify their portfolio across multiple crypto assets,” he said. “Shiba Inu, owing to the recent rally, has become the eighth-largest crypto in the world by market cap. At OKEx, we have seen a 5x increase in Shiba Inu trading since the beginning of the price surge.”
Top exchanges said that Indians continued to buy Shiba Inu on Friday.
Data from the exchanges indicate that most of the investors who made money, like Kumar, haven’t liquidated their investments but are putting in more money, hoping for further highs.
“I am going to hold the positions long term,” said Kumar, who did not tell ET the total value of his “risk portfolio” after the jump in the meme coin.
With Bitcoin, Etherum, Solana and Cardano exhibiting volatility and demand for Shiba Inu increasing on Wednesday, WazirX’s services were disrupted for a while on Thursday amid a flood of orders. The exchange said trading volume touched a record $566 million.
There are close to 15 million crypto investors in India, holding digital assets worth ₹15,000 crore, according to figures compiled by Indian cryptocurrency exchanges. All the large cryptocurrency exchanges have seen at least a doubling in trading and investment in the past few months.
