Shiba Inu Caught in the Token Burning Cycle: Can Shibarium Reignite Momentum?

Shiba Inu (SHIB) continues to struggle in the shadow of its 2021 glory days, trading at $0.00 with a 24-hour volume of just $1.97M. The project faces a mounting credibility challenge that extends beyond price action—the notorious burning bottleneck remains one of SHIB’s most intractable problems. At the current token burning rate, the community would need over a millennium to meaningfully dent the massive supply, leaving the project metaphorically stuck in the burning bin of ineffective tokenomics solutions.

Data from NS3.AI reveals that Shibarium’s daily transaction activity remains stubbornly low, signaling that the layer-2 network has yet to achieve meaningful traction despite its supposed role as the ecosystem’s backbone. This lack of network engagement undermines one of the project’s core value propositions—without robust adoption, SHIB loses a critical catalyst for supply reduction and utility expansion.

That said, the development team isn’t sitting idle. Privacy upgrades are slated for 2026, which could potentially address privacy concerns and attract more sophisticated users to the ecosystem. However, the market’s patience is wearing thin. Investor confidence now hinges almost entirely on whether the team can execute the roadmap effectively and translate Shibarium’s promise into tangible adoption metrics that might eventually lift SHIB beyond its current doldrums.

The narrative around Shiba Inu is fundamentally one of unfulfilled potential. With privacy enhancements on the horizon and Shibarium’s development ongoing, the question isn’t whether the team is working—it’s whether their efforts can generate the network effects and trading momentum needed to break the burning cycle and restore confidence in SHIB’s long-term viability.