Dogecoin vs Shiba Inu: What's the Difference? | BitPay (2024)

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are a pair of memecoins known for not taking themselves too seriously. But despite their quasi tongue-in-cheek nature, both have attracted large followings and built up robust, active communities of die-hard fans. As is typical with memecoins, the price of DOGE and SHIB has historically been more connected with virality and hype than supply and demand. The coins have a lot in common besides their Shiba Inu dog mascot, but also differ in many ways.

History of Dogecoin

Launched in 2013, DOGE is widely considered the original memecoin. Its creators, software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, felt Bitcoin was too complicated and difficult to use for the average person. The pair founded Dogecoin as something of a joke, but it apparently struck a chord with crypto users. Much to the founders’ surprise, it quickly attained viral status.

The coin’s logo and official mascot is a Shiba Inu dog made famous by the popular “doge” meme, which was in its heyday at the time of Dogecoin’s launch.

The Dogecoin protocol was based on a now-defunct cryptocurrency called Luckycoin, a fork of Bitcoin-spinoff Litecoin (LTC). Dogecoin uses its own dedicated blockchain, which functions similarly to Bitcoin. Transactions are secured on-chain using cryptography and permanently recorded on its digital ledger. Also similar to Bitcoin, Dogecoin utilizes a proof-of-work consensus mechanism and entices miners to validate transactions through mining rewards paid out in DOGE. The Dogecoin blockchain is speedy, capable of adding a new block every minute, compared to every 10 minutes for Bitcoin.

One major difference between DOGE and Bitcoin is its supply cap. While Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million coins, DOGE was designed to be inflationary, with no upper supply limit. While this limits DOGE’s potential as a “store of value” asset like Bitcoin, it makes it well suited for spending.

History of Shiba Inu Coin

Shiba Inu coin is a relative newcomer compared to DOGE, launched in August 2020 by an anonymous creator (or creators) known only as Ryoshi. SHIB was devised as an Ethereum-based alternative to Dogecoin, with an emphasis on community. It was initially intended as a parody of DOGE, often referring to itself as “the Dogecoin killer”.

Much like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu coin got its own viral moment in the sun, even eclipsing its rival’s market cap for a brief period in mid-2021. SHIB’s community, dubbed the “SHIBarmy”, is known for their hyper-enthusiastic support of the coin, frequently flooding Twitter polls and online petitions. This helped it beat out Bitcoin as the most popular cryptocurrency of the year in 2021 according to CoinMarketCap data, garnering a whopping 43 million more views than BTC.

Shiba Inu coin is an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum blockchain, which enables users to take part in on-chain activities like creating smart contracts and earning staking rewards. It has its own decentralized exchange (DEX) called ShibaSwap which holders use to generate passive income. In the time since its launch, SHIB has been divided up into three “sibling” tokens: SHIB, LEASH, and BONE. LEASH is the network’s staking reward token, paid out to network validators for verifying transactions. BONE is its governance token, used by SHIB holders to vote on changes to the network.

What’s the difference between Dogecoin and Shiba Inu coin?

Shiba Inu coin and Dogecoin share some similarities, but many differences. Their price trajectories have mirrored those of many other cryptocurrencies, at times experiencing wild fluctuations. DOGE has had the advantage of famous supporters like Snoop Dogg and Elon Musk, whose promotion helped propel Dogecoin to its all-time high of $0.74 in May 2021. By comparison, Shiba Inu’s all-time high, notched in October that same year, was $0.00008616. Both coins have slipped more than 90% from their peaks, as of July 2023.

Shiba Inu coin’s max supply is capped at 1 quadrillion tokens (1,000,000,000,000,000). So while there technically isn’t an infinite supply like with DOGE, SHIB has the highest max supply of any crypto in existence. In May of 2021, Ryoshi famously sent Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin half of SHIB’s total supply. He donated 10% of it to the India Covid Relief Fund (worth over $1.2 billion at the time), and burned the remaining 90%, permanently removing them from circulation. Today, DOGE’s circulating supply is just over 140 billion coins, which is increased by around 5 billion DOGE every year as part of its inflationary design. SHIB’s circulating supply sits at 589.34 trillion, as of July 2023.

One of the most prominent differences between the two memecoins is their blockchain. Shiba Inu is an ERC-20 token, which allows users to interact with the DeFi ecosystem, most of which is only compatible with Ethereum. DOGE, on the other hand, has its own blockchain based on Litecoin’s underlying technology, using the scrypt proof-of-work algorithm.

Which is been the better investment?

Both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu started out as a joke, but have since grown into widely held cryptocurrencies with massive communities. However, as memecoins, the underlying factors dictating their price swings are more based in hype than economics, which makes them both highly risky investments. Elon Musk has been accused more than once of attempting to inflate the price of Dogecoin with various antics. Shortly after he assumed the helm of Twitter, Musk even changed its famous blue bird logo to the DOGE logo for several days. As for which makes the better investment, it’s sort of a toss-up. Dogecoin has a first-mover advantage, a larger community and a significantly higher average price than Shiba Inu coin. However, SHIB’s fixed (albeit massive) supply may be more appealing to some investors. As of July 2023, Dogecoin’s market cap is $9.61 billion, compared to $4.43 billion for SHIB.

Related reading:

• Buy DOGE with BitPay
• Buy SHIB with BitPay
• Using Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) Strategy to Build Wealth with Crypto Assets

Which is more popular for making payments?

Both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu coin enjoy widespread acceptance by major merchants around the world. You can spend SHIB on anything from movie tickets at AMC Theaters, a new watch from Jomashop or center-ice tickets to a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game. Likewise, users can spend DOGEat retailers like Ralph Lauren and Newegg, pay for services like Sling TV or snag courtside seats to a Dallas Mavericks game.

All BitPay merchants have the ability to accept both DOGE and SHIB as payment for goods and services. However, BitPay Stats show that DOGE made up almost 7% of crypto payments processed by BitPay in June 2023 whereas SHIB made up less than 1%. Check out our Merchant Directory for a curated list of companies that accept cryptocurrencies including DOGE and SHIB through BitPay.

In addition to spending directly with merchants, both DOGE and SHIB can be used to buy gift cards for hundreds of your favorite brands and retailers directly from the BitPay Wallet. Moreover, each can be converted to dollars with the BitPay Card.

Looking forward

Shiba Inu coin and Dogecoin may not be every crypto user’s preferred assets, but both have certainly made their mark on the crypto landscape. While their price volatility makes them both high-risk as investments, their popularity has been significant enough to be accepted by many mainstream merchants and service providers.

FAQs

Which is better: DOGE or Shiba Inu coin?

“Better” is a tricky metric to parse out when it comes to crypto, as the answer depends largely on the individual user. If price is your yardstick, DOGE has historically held the advantage. However, if what you value is access to DeFi applications such as staking and lending, SHIB’s compatibility with Ethereum likely makes it the better choice for a wide variety of blockchain activities.

Can Shiba Inu overtake Dogecoin?

During the height of SHIB’s viral popularity in October 2021, Shiba Inu surpassed Dogecoin’s market cap by almost $8 billion ($39.3 billion to DOGE’s $31.4 billion). At the time SHIB rocketed into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. As of July 2023, DOGE is still clinging to its top 10 status at #9, while SHIB has slipped to #19. Almost anything can happen with memecoin prices, but something very significant would need to happen on both sides in order for SHIB to overtake its rival again anytime soon.

Will Shiba Inu coin reach $1?

The SHIB community’s ultimate champagne wish is to see the coin one day reach a price of $1. Unfortunately, given its enormous circulating supply, the odds are long against it. If the price of a single Shiba Inu coin reached $1 today, its market cap would be nearly $600 trillion. For comparison, the entire crypto market cap is currently $1.27 trillion, Apple and Microsoft are worth $3 trillion each and the U.S. GDP is around $23 trillion.

More comparisons of popular cryptocurrencies:

• Bitcoin (BTC) vs Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Bitcoin (BTC) vs Litecoin (LTC)
• Bitcoin (BTC) vs Ethereum (ETH)
• Polygon (MATIC) vs Ethereum (ETH)