Shiba Inu (SHIB) surged approximately 36% on Sunday, reaching around $0.0000057, adding about $1 billion to its market capitalization in a single day. The market has not yet seen any announcements or product developments directly related to this surge; instead, trading data suggests that buying from the South Korean market is the primary driver of this unusual activity.
Trading volume rises to near monthly high
According to data cited by CoinDesk, SHIB currently has a market capitalization of nearly $3.4 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of nearly $380 million, with trading activity reaching a multi-month high. Along with the price increase, the proportion of the Korean won trading pair in the global market has also risen.
Looking at the performance across different sectors, this surge hasn't spread to the entire Dogecoin sector. During the same period, Dogecoin rose by approximately 6%, while some smaller-cap similar tokens saw gains of around 10%. This suggests that funds didn't flow back to MME coin as a whole, but rather concentrated in SHIB.
Upbit's Korean Won trading pair has a prominent share.
The SHIB/KRW trading pair on the South Korean exchange Upbit became the single largest market, with a trading volume of approximately $62 million, accounting for over 10% of global trading volume. The pair also traded at a slight premium compared to USD trading platforms such as Binance.
South Korean retail investors have historically been a significant force in highly volatile cryptocurrency markets. This price action also reflects this characteristic: the price initially rallied on Saturday evening, then traded sideways for about nine hours before surging again in early Asian trading.
Short liquidation occurred after the price increase.
The derivatives market also experienced a ripple effect, but its scale was insufficient to explain this surge alone. Data shows that approximately $6 million in SHIB and 1000SHIB contracts were liquidated, involving about 2,300 traders, of which about $5 million were short positions.
The most concentrated liquidation occurred during the second wave of the rally, indicating that short covering was more a result of the price increase than the initial driving factor.
Launched in August 2020 by anonymous developer Ryoshi as an Ethereum token, SHIB was initially marketed as a "Dogecoin killer." The project later expanded with the layer-2 network Shibarium and a more complete token ecosystem, but SHIB's price remains significantly below its 2021 high, and market trading is still primarily driven by retail investor sentiment.
