Shiba Inu has 99.96 percent of its supply in circulation, XRP only 63.1 percent

Of every Shiba Inu token that can ever exist, 99.96 percent is already in circulation. That is the single most important figure on the supply side, and it means one thing: Shiba Inu has no block of locked tokens waiting to drop into the market. Anyone holding SHIB carries no dilution risk. What they do carry is demand risk, and all of it.

The price stood at $0.00000489 on Sunday evening, or €0.00000436. That is 2.17 percent lower over 24 hours, 11.47 percent over seven days and 10.22 percent over thirty days. Market capitalisation is $2.88 billion, rank 37 among all cryptocurrencies. Every figure in this paragraph comes from the CoinGecko market database.

99.96 percent in circulation: the supply side at Shiba Inu

Total supply is 589.50 trillion SHIB. Of that, 589.24 trillion circulates. The difference is 257.44 billion tokens not yet in circulation. That sounds enormous until you convert it into money: at the current price those 257.44 billion SHIB are worth $1.26 million in total. Daily turnover is $36.05 million. The entire outstanding supply therefore amounts to a little over three percent of a single trading day.

In practice that means this: even if every token still outside circulation hit the market tomorrow at once, the order book would barely register it. In crypto that position is the exception, not the rule.

What a circulating supply ratio actually says

The circulating supply ratio is the share of tokens that are tradable, measured against every token that exists. The figure behind it is total supply, and it includes everything locked in contracts, held in escrow or released later on a fixed schedule.

The difference between the two numbers is the part of the supply still ahead of the market. The larger it is, the more new sellers can appear without a single holder changing their mind. Analysts call this dilution: the price has to attract more capital simply to stay where it is.

XRP at 63 percent, Chainlink at 77: the gap in numbers

How unusual the Shiba Inu figure is becomes clear from a look at other large tokens. All values were retrieved from CoinGecko on Sunday evening and refer to circulating supply against total supply:

• Shiba Inu: 99.96 percent in circulation, 257.44 billion SHIB outstanding, worth $1.26 million.
• Dogecoin: 99.99 percent, 18.49 million DOGE outstanding, worth $1.43 million.
• Solana: 92.68 percent, 46.59 million SOL outstanding, worth $4.75 billion.
• Chainlink: 76.69 percent, 233.15 million LINK outstanding, worth $2.74 billion.
• XRP: 63.14 percent, 36.86 billion XRP outstanding, worth $46.81 billion.

The gap is not a matter of degree but of kind. At XRP, tokens worth $46.81 billion sit outside circulation, more than sixteen times the entire Shiba Inu market capitalisation. Part of that is released monthly on a fixed schedule. Shiba Inu has nothing comparable, because there never was a release schedule: the supply was created in one go in 2020.

Anyone who wants to check this before buying will find both numbers side by side on any market data page, usually as circulating supply and total supply. The ratio takes ten seconds to work out and says more about the risk of the coming months than any chart line. Which venues list a given token and what trading costs there are set out in our overview of the best crypto exchanges.

Vesting and cliffs: why token unlocks weigh on the price

A release schedule, known in the trade as vesting, distributes tokens to founders, investors and foundations in stages over time. A cliff is the lock-up period before that: nothing moves before the cut-off date, and afterwards a block comes free at once. Serious projects set out both in their documentation, and both are known months in advance.

The mechanism works in two steps. First the tradable supply rises without demand growing with it. Then some recipients sell, because for them the tokens are salary or repayment, not an investment. How sharply the price reacts depends on the size of the released amount relative to daily turnover. An unlock worth half a day of turnover is noticeable; one worth several days of turnover moves the price.

That is precisely the risk Shiba Inu does not have. It is the one point where a meme coin with no company and no funding round is structurally better placed than a fully financed protocol.

41 percent has been burned, the rest barely moves

At launch in 2020 there was one quadrillion SHIB, that is 1,000 trillion. Today total supply stands at 589.50 trillion. That makes 410.50 trillion tokens burned, or 41.05 percent of the original supply. The figure follows directly from the difference and can be traced on the public counter at Shibburn.

Most of it came from a single event: in May 2021 Vitalik Buterin destroyed roughly 410 trillion SHIB that the project had sent him unasked. What has been burned continuously since then runs in the order of a few million to a few billion tokens a day. Against 589.24 trillion in circulation, that changes the supply in the fourth or fifth decimal place.

For context, that means the burn is not a price driver and has not been one since 2021. It keeps the supply stable but does not make it scarce. Anyone waiting for scarcity is waiting for a process that would arithmetically take decades.

Shibarium: 659 transactions a day, the lowest level since September 20

The supply side is one half. The other is the question of what the tokens are needed for. Shibarium, the project's second layer, most recently processed 659 transactions in a day, according to an analysis by U.Today. That is the lowest reading since September 20, 2026.

A second layer is a blockchain of its own that bundles transactions and settles them collectively on the main blockchain. Its purpose is to cut fees and create throughput. Neither helps unless somebody uses it. 659 transactions a day is an order of magnitude a single active user can generate in an hour.

Taken together, the two findings give the picture that matters: nothing threatens from the supply side, and nothing is coming from the usage side. That leaves the price hanging on a single factor, demand from outside.

What has happened since October 17

On Friday we wrote here about the fifth anniversary of the record price, which falls on October 27. SHIB stood at around $0.00000500 at the time. Since then it has been $0.00000489, a fall of a good two percent. Sunday's daily low was $0.00000488 and the daily high $0.00000502.

The level that has held over these two days is $0.00000488. That value matches the daily low and sits around 2.8 percent below the daily high. Beyond that nothing in the picture has shifted: the distance to the record of $0.00008616 set on October 27, 2021 is still 94.3 percent.

Holding period and loss offsetting: the tax framework in Germany

For investors in Germany the supply position has one concrete consequence. If no release date moves the price, there is no date on which a sale has to be timed either. That makes the holding period the only calendar that counts.

Under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, gains on the sale of cryptocurrencies are tax-free if more than a year lies between purchase and sale. Below that the personal tax rate applies, and an exemption threshold of €1,000 a year covers all private disposals taken together. Threshold means exactly that: one euro above it makes the entire amount taxable, not just the excess.

Losses from such transactions can only be set against gains in the same category, not against interest, dividends or employment income. Anyone holding SHIB at a loss since the start of the year who sells inside the twelve-month window can therefore set that loss against gains from other crypto sales in the same year. Which tools assign acquisition dates cleanly on a FIFO basis is shown in our overview of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.

Our assessment: no dilution risk is no substitute for demand

In the view of this desk, a circulating ratio of 99.96 percent is a real but limited advantage. It is real because it rules out a risk that remains in place at XRP with 36.86 billion outstanding tokens and at Chainlink with 233.15 million. It is limited because an absent risk does not create demand.

The evidence against lies in the same set of numbers: 659 transactions a day on Shibarium, daily turnover of $36.05 million against a market capitalisation of $2.88 billion, which is a turnover rate of 1.25 percent, and minus 50.53 percent over twelve months. A supply that is not growing will not hold the price up if demand shrinks faster. That is exactly what has been happening for twelve months.

We are assessing the situation here, not the investment: Shiba Inu remains a meme coin without cash flows, and a total loss is possible in this asset class.

Shiba Inu without an unlock calendar: the price rests on demand alone

Three things follow from the supply position:

1. Work out the ratio yourself. Circulating supply and total supply sit side by side for every token. If the ratio is below 80 percent, the release schedule belongs on the reading list before the purchase. Where each token can be traded and at what fees is set out in our overview of the best perp DEXs for derivatives trading.
2. Match custody to the holding period. Anyone planning to hold for a year does not need minute-by-minute access. For holdings meant to sit still, hardware devices are the safer place; the models are listed in our hardware wallet comparison.
3. Watch the demand side, not the burn. What counts are transactions on Shibarium and daily turnover, not the amount burned each day. 659 transactions is the reading that matters now.

(As of October 18, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)