It was late 2021 when the self-styled “Dogecoin killer” stunned the crypto market with a dramatic price rally that pushed its market capitalization above $40 billion.
That high was short-lived, and Shiba Inu slipped from those levels before staging a notable comeback in 2024, although it did not reclaim its all-time peak. The past year, however, has been disappointing for the token: its price is down roughly 60%. With confidence shaken among many holders, we asked three of the most popular AI chatbots to identify factors that could potentially spark a major revival for SHIB.
The Catalysts
ChatGPT highlighted that SHIB is increasingly regarded as more than just a meme coin, so its prospects now depend more on real utility within its ecosystem. One key catalyst it identified is widespread adoption of Shibarium.
Shibarium is a Layer-2 scaling solution created to support the Shiba Inu ecosystem by reducing transaction costs, increasing speed, and improving scalability. It launched in the summer of 2023 and initially generated strong interest, facilitating multi-million-dollar transactions on many days. The protocol experienced a security incident last year that led to a significant drop in activity and transaction volumes.
ChatGPT also pointed to the token’s supply dynamics as a critical issue. The meme coin’s extremely large supply has long been considered a major obstacle to sustained price appreciation.
“If daily activity becomes enormous – gaming, payments, DeFi, AI apps, etc. – burn rates could accelerate dramatically. A true revival probably requires the market believing the supply can shrink meaningfully over time,” it noted.
Finally, the chatbot suggested that approval and launch of a spot SHIB ETF could attract new capital to the token and boost its price, noting that U.S. regulators have already approved spot products for other digital assets in recent years.
Perplexity echoed ChatGPT’s emphasis on burn rates and Shibarium’s importance, and added that a renewed meme coin season could also lift SHIB:
“When Dogecoin, Pepe, and similar coins start breaking out together, SHIB often benefits from sector-wide speculative flows rather than needing its own news first.”
The ‘Bitcoin Effect’ and More
The third chatbot, Google’s Gemini, argued that any meaningful breakout for SHIB will likely be tied to Bitcoin’s price action. According to Gemini, SHIB has matured to the point where it rarely surges independently of broader market trends.
“If Bitcoin breaks out to new highs and market liquidity increases, ‘hot money’ typically rotates from Bitcoin to Ethereum and then into higher-risk, higher-reward meme coins like SHIB,” it said.
Gemini also highlighted the role of large holders and whale activity. The chatbot suggested that without meaningful accumulation or fresh positioning by big investors, SHIB’s chances of staging a sustained resurgence are limited.
In summary, the AI chatbots identified several interconnected drivers that could help revive Shiba Inu: stronger real-world and on-chain utility via Shibarium, accelerated token burn mechanisms that reduce supply, sector-wide momentum during a renewed meme coin cycle, potential regulatory green lights such as a spot ETF, and capital flows tied to Bitcoin and major whale activity. Any combination of these elements—especially broader adoption that translates into measurable network activity—would likely be required to convince markets that SHIB can mount a durable recovery.