The Shiba Inu cryptocurrency meme coin is trading at all-time highs, even after Tesla CEO and dog-related crypto enthusiast Elon Musk announced on Sunday that he does not own any of the world’s second-largest dog-related coin.
On Sunday, the price of Shiba Inu coin, which trades as SHIB, skyrocketed to a peak $0.000044, over 50% higher than its price on Saturday. Shiba Inu dropped 10% to trade at $0.000040 as of Monday. Before this weekend, SHIB had never traded above $0.000035.
The Shiba Inu coin is now the 11th-largest crypto token by market cap, valued at an estimated $20.3 billion, roughly the same as U.S. cereal giant Kellogg’s. Dogecoin, the world’s largest dog-related meme coin, is the ninth-largest crypto token, with a $35 billion valuation, according to crypto data aggregator CoinGecko, or nearly equivalent to the market cap of technology firm HP.
The 10% drop in Shiba Inu’s price on Monday is due, at least in part, to Musk’s Twitter activity on Sunday. A Twitter user with the handle @ShibaInuHodler asked Musk how much SHIB he held. Musk replied “none.”
He later tweeted that crypto users should beware of investing their entire savings into meme coins like SHIB or the Floki Inu coin, an asset inspired by Musk’s decision to name his real-life Shiba Inu puppy Floki.
“Don’t bet the farm on crypto!” Musk wrote on Twitter. “True value is building products & providing services to your fellow human beings, not money in any form.”
That Shiba Inu is still trading higher than its pre-surge price may reflect that Musk’s power over the dog-related coin markets may be fading. In early October, a single Musk tweet about his new puppy helped spark a 400% rise in Shiba Inu coin’s price.
The recent surge in SHIB instead appears related to unconfirmed rumors that the coin will soon be listed on the popular stock trading app Robinhood.
Coinmomo, a website that claims to provide a “fundamental analysis of the crypto market,” is at least one cog in the Shiba Inu–Robinhood rumor mill. It reported, without citing any sources, on Sunday that the coin would be listed on Robinhood on Monday. This weekend, Robinhood also sent a survey to users asking which cryptocurrencies they trade. Many Shiba Inu fans, or the self-described SHIB Army, took Shiba Inu’s inclusion on Robinhood’s list as proof Robinhood would list the coin for trading on its app.
As of Monday morning, Robinhood has not listed the Shiba Inu coin. A Robinhood spokesperson said that Robinhood has not announced any plans to list the Shiba Inu coin and referred to its tweet on the subject from Oct. 19.
“We have not made any announcements with regards to SHIB or any other upcoming coins,” Robinhood wrote in the tweet.
In an interview with CNBC last week, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev did not answer a question about whether the trading platform will add SHIB to its crypto-related offerings, which allow users to trade seven coins including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. But Tenev did not dismiss the rumors either.
“We see an opportunity to continue growing [our crypto trading] business,” Tenev said.
A change.org petition asking Robinhood to list Shiba Inu coin for trading on the app has garnered over 308,000 signatures.
This article has been updated to reflect a statement from Robinhood.
More finance coverage from Fortune:
- 4 things to know about stimulus checks in 2022 and beyond
- GameStop report from SEC sheds new light on meme stock mania—conspiracies and all
- How high Goldman Sachs predicts home prices will go in 2022
- Mortgage rates may spike 30% next year, according to a new forecast
- These markets are expected to be the hottest for real estate in 2022
Subscribe to The Ledger for expert weekly analysis on fintech’s big stories, delivered free to your inbox.
