Could Shiba Inu Hit $1 by 2026? The Response May Surprise You

The Shiba Inu ( SHIB 3.70%) digital currency was launched by a mysterious creator known as Ryoshi in 2020, aiming to rival the original meme coin, Dogecoin. In 2021, its price skyrocketed an astonishing 45,278,000%, meaning a perfectly-timed $3 investment could have ballooned to $1 million.

Yet, the speculative frenzy that fueled those gains eventually faded, and Shiba Inu has since tumbled 85%, now trading at just $0.000013 per token. At the same time, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies reached a record $4.2 trillion last month, aided by President Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly administration and a series of new policies intended to boost the sector’s value.

Shiba Inu has yet to find a practical application that could support lasting growth, but the pro-crypto stance of President Trump could pave the way for change. With that in mind, is it possible that Shiba Inu will hit the $1 mark per token in 2026? The answer may surprise you.

Pro-crypto regulations can't fix Shiba Inu’s core challenges

Earlier this year, President Trump set up a digital asset reserve for the U.S. government to hold various cryptocurrencies obtained from criminal cases. Although Shiba Inu isn’t among them, this move signals overall support for the crypto industry.

Additionally, the president installed Paul Atkins, a crypto supporter, as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under his direction, the SEC has dropped several ongoing lawsuits against leading crypto companies. In theory, this more lenient regulatory climate grants developers more space to innovate and find new uses for cryptocurrencies—potentially benefiting Shiba Inu directly.

There are two main ways a cryptocurrency can gain value:

1. It achieves broad acceptance as a payment method, with widespread use among consumers and businesses.
2. It becomes a reliable store of value for investors.

The crypto directory Cryptwerk reports that only 1,073 businesses around the globe accept Shiba Inu for payments. The meme coin is based on the older Ethereum network, notorious for being slow and costly, which limits its practicality as a medium of exchange.

Developers have introduced a Layer-2 blockchain to fix some of these performance problems, but it hasn’t led to significant change. In my view, Shiba Inu’s wild price fluctuations may be an even bigger hurdle, as unpredictable values make it nearly impossible for businesses to manage their cash flows. Lighter regulations alone can’t solve this.

On the second point, Shiba Inu has not proven itself as a store of value, having failed to reach a new all-time high in the last four years and still being 85% below its peak price.

Shiba Inu's massive supply makes $1 per token unrealistic

One of the biggest obstacles for Shiba Inu’s growth is its colossal total supply of 589.2 trillion tokens. Even at its current modest price of $0.000013, the token’s market cap is still $7.5 billion—a surprisingly high figure for such a speculative asset.

Basic calculations reveal that if each token were to reach $1, the market capitalization would hit $589.2 trillion. That’s about five times the total global economic output in 2024, which was $111 trillion, and over 11 times the combined worth of all S&P 500 companies ( ^GSPC -0.05%), currently valued at $52.5 trillion.

Simply stated, there’s no realistic way for Shiba Inu to achieve $1 per token by 2026—or ever—unless something fundamental changes. The numbers simply don’t add up.

That said, the community is working to decrease the token supply by "burning" tokens—sending them to inaccessible wallets. Theoretically, as more tokens are burned, each remaining token should become more valuable, which could, in principle, push the price toward $1.

Burning enough tokens would take an unimaginable length of time

Shiba Inu is currently valued at $7.5 billion. If investors were to destroy 99.99998% of the circulating 589.2 trillion tokens, leaving only 7.5 billion, the price could theoretically rise from $0.000013 to $1 per token.

However, since the overall market value doesn’t actually increase, investors wouldn’t see a profit. Even though each token would be worth more, holders would own far fewer tokens, so their total wealth would remain unchanged.

But here’s the astonishing part: Only 64.3 million tokens were destroyed last month, which equates to around 771.6 million per year. Compared to nearly 600 trillion tokens in existence, this is a minuscule amount. At this rate, it would take 763,600 years to burn enough tokens to justify a $1 price—meaning no one alive today would ever see it happen.

It gets even grimmer. Even after such a lengthy process, inflation over those many centuries would leave everyone’s wealth much worse off. So even extreme hypothetical scenarios don’t work in Shiba Inu’s favor.