Billions on Shiba Inu: how early investors rode the meme to riches

One of the early Shiba Inu investors, вложивший в актив $8000 в августе 2020 года, has become a billionaire. Against the backdrop of the meme cryptocurrency’s rally, the coins on his кошельке are now worth $4.84 billion.

This wallet bought roughly $8,000 of $SHIB last August.

It’s now worth $5.7 billion.

From $8,000 to $5.7 billion in roughly 400 days.

We may actually be looking at the greatest individual trade of all time. pic.twitter.com/LtdgQ83bKP

— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) October 27, 2021

On October 27, 2021, SHIB reached an all-time high near $0.00006. Over the last 24 hours the price rose by 23.5%, over the week — by 130%. Over the year the asset surged by 77,732,050%, according to CoinGecko.

As of writing, SHIB was trading near $0.000063.

Shiba Inu’s market capitalization is $34.76 billion. This means that the address above holds nearly 14% of the current circulating supply of the cryptocurrency.

In light of this, some members of the community asked whether the market is sufficiently liquid to “absorb” these billions if the holder decides to sell.

So the question is, can the SHIB market absorb $5.7b if this wallet sells?

— ᴜɴᴛʀᴀᴄᴀᴇʙʟᴇ (@DontTraceMeBruh) October 27, 2021

Analyst Chris Blec noted that the investor bought the asset literally one day after Shiba Inu was launched. He said the address may belong to one of the project’s founders or people affiliated with them. Later he suggested that the meme cryptocurrency “could have been a venture capital game” from the very start.

Purchase was made 1 day after SHIB was created. Probably the creator or someone closely associated with him/them.

— Chris Blec (@ChrisBlec) October 27, 2021

Another Shiba Inu investor became a millionaire in less than a year. In January 2021 he invested $434 in the cryptocurrency. The assets he acquired are now valued at $71.2 million, and at its peak were worth even more.

Users also noted the address that holds the cryptocurrency donated by the India Covid Relief Fund. Earlier, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin donated 70 trillion SHIB to the organization.

It appears this single private entity bought 80% of the SHIB donated by vitalik to the India Covid Relief Fund for around 400$M worth and is now sitting on 3.3B worth of SHIB https://t.co/644vmULnaj pic.twitter.com/xP9pJYVRj5

— state (@statelayer) October 28, 2021

The address holds 80% of the donated funds by Buterin, which at current prices amount to $2.9 billion. In September the fund confirmed that it converted roughly 40 trillion SHIB into fiat via the Wintermute platform.

Summary of all the $SHIBA tokens converted till date.

We’ve converted ~80% of @VitalikButerin‘s donation for a total proceeds of 387,683,398.

The remaining 20% is also transferred to @wintermute_t

(2/x) pic.twitter.com/Poh4kqt6vo

— India’s Crypto Covid Relief 🇮🇳 (@CryptoRelief_) September 17, 2021

In May, after Wintermute received the first tranche from the fund, its head Evgeny Gaevoy said that during implementation the cryptocurrency was distributed across several centralized and decentralized exchanges.

% split per exchange: pic.twitter.com/sOtkpFEvLz

— wishful cynic (@EvgenyGaevoy) May 17, 2021

In October, Elon Musk denied investments in Shiba Inu, after which the asset declined but quickly recovered.

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