Shiba Inu experienced a significant increase of approximately 36% on Sunday, climbing to $0.0000057 and adding around $1 billion to its market capitalization without any discernible reason.
The token's market capitalization now stands close to $3.4 billion, supported by nearly $380 million in daily trading volume, its highest activity level in several months.
Notably, South Korean traders on Upbit have been pivotal in this surge, as the SHIB/KRW trading pair makes up over 10% of the global trading volume while offering a slight premium compared to other exchanges like Binance.
Despite no new announcements or developments from Shibarium, the network's layer-2 solution, other dog-themed tokens have not seen similar gains. For instance, Dogecoin only rose by 6% during the same period, indicating that the movement is specific to Shiba Inu.
On Upbit, the SHIB/KRW pair generated around $62 million in transactions, highlighting the platform's influence in this rally. South Korean traders are known for their enthusiastic trading of high-volatility tokens, and this price increase aligns with that trend, marked by an initial rise late Saturday followed by a consolidation period before a renewed push early Sunday.
Interestingly, short sellers faced significant losses, with around $6 million in SHIB and 1000SHIB positions liquidated across approximately 2,300 traders, including about $5 million from short positions. These liquidations occurred after the price increase, suggesting they were a consequence rather than a cause of the rally.
Shiba Inu was launched in August 2020 by an anonymous developer known as Ryoshi, initially marketed as a "Dogecoin killer" without any substantive product. Since then, the project has expanded to include Shibarium and a broader token ecosystem, though SHIB is still trading far below its peak in 2021, primarily influenced by retail market sentiment rather than underlying product developments.