Shiba Inu ten days before its record turns five: what matters now is the holding period

On October 27 the all-time high of Shiba Inu turns five years old. The price stood at $0.00000500 on Saturday evening, 94.2 percent below that record. For investors in Germany the anniversary raises a deadline question rather than a price question. Anyone selling SHIB settles the tax on the acquisition date, not on the price level, and the dividing line sits at twelve months. The price series of the past twelve months shows how much is at stake.

What happened on October 27, 2021

At 19:54 UTC on October 27, 2021, SHIB traded at $0.00008616. That is still the highest level ever recorded, according to the price database CoinGecko, which is also the source of every other price figure in this article. In euros, the peak that same day came to 0.00007424 euros.

From the record to Saturday evening, 94.2 percent has been lost. That is the best-known figure about Shiba Inu and at the same time the one that supports the fewest conclusions. The record describes a period in which the vast majority of today's holders were not invested at all.

The price on Saturday evening: range, turnover, market value

On Saturday evening, as of October 17, one SHIB costs $0.00000500 or 0.00000445 euros. Over the past 24 hours the price moved between $0.00000495 and $0.00000511, a gap of a good three percent between the daily low and the daily high. The market value of all circulating tokens stands at $2.95 billion, which places SHIB 37th among all crypto assets. Within 24 hours, SHIB worth $34.2 million changed hands.

Over longer periods the picture is mixed. On a seven-day view there is a loss of 8.6 percent, over 30 days 3.3 percent, while over 60 days there is a gain of 12.3 percent. Over twelve months a loss of 48.6 percent remains. August and September therefore absorbed part of the spring collapse without making up for it.

What has changed since October 16

On October 16 we reported here on the 42.48 billion SHIB on the Solana blockchain, worth around $218,000 at that point. Since then the price has moved little and the direction not at all: the closing price on October 16 was $0.00000512, and the current level sits 2.4 percent below it.

The level that served as the lower bound of the October range in that article is therefore still holding. More telling than the move is what failed to happen. Saturday's turnover of $34.2 million is in the same order of magnitude as on the preceding days. The figures show no sign of a fresh wave of buyers or sellers.

Supply explains part of the gap to the record

Part of the distance to the record lies in the supply rather than in the price. Of an initial one quadrillion tokens, CoinGecko today still lists 589.50 trillion as the total supply, of which 589.24 trillion are in circulation. The gap of roughly 410 trillion tokens goes back largely to 2021, when most of the amount transferred to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was destroyed.

For the market value that means the $2.95 billion is spread across a far smaller supply than at the launch of the project. A price comparison over five years therefore sets two different calculations against each other. To measure the development cleanly, take the market value and not the price per token.

The ongoing burns funded by fees on the Shibarium blockchain do little to change that order of magnitude. The volume has run at a few hundred million tokens a month for weeks; measured against 589 trillion in circulation, that is a fraction of less than a tenth of a percent a year.

The one-year deadline sits in section 23 of the German Income Tax Act

For tax purposes, crypto assets count as other economic goods. Germany's Federal Fiscal Court ruled so on February 14, 2023 in case IX R 3/22 for Bitcoin, Ether and Monero, confirming the classification the Federal Ministry of Finance has taken since 2022. The consequence sits in section 23 (1) sentence 1 no. 2 of the German Income Tax Act: a private disposal transaction arises where the period between acquisition and disposal is no more than one year.

A private disposal transaction is the taxable event that arises when an economic good held privately is bought and sold again inside that period. A disposal is not only the swap back into euros; under the Federal Fiscal Court ruling it also covers an exchange into another crypto asset. Swapping SHIB for USDT triggers the same event as a sale for euros.

Which tranche counts as sold first where there have been several purchases is set out in the statute only for comparable amounts of foreign currency, where the first amount acquired counts as the first disposed of. For crypto assets, the Finance Ministry circular of March 6, 2025, file reference IV C 1 - S 2256/00042/064/043, governs the details of allocation and record keeping. It replaced the circular of May 10, 2022 and introduces the collective term crypto assets.

Day 365 and day 366: the tax dividing line

The deadline is a hard one, and it cuts both ways. Inside the twelve months a gain is taxable, and at the personal income tax rate rather than the 25 percent flat withholding tax. A loss inside the twelve months is usable for tax purposes in return.

Once the twelve months have passed, the sign of the advantage flips. A gain is then entirely tax free, whatever its size. A loss, however, has no tax effect: it arises outside a private disposal transaction and can be set against nothing.

That is precisely where a price series becomes instructive. An investor who bought for $1,000 on October 18, 2025 received roughly 102.5 million SHIB at a price of $0.00000975. That holding is worth $513 on Saturday evening, a loss of $487. For this purchase the one-year deadline runs out in the coming days. Sell before it does and a usable loss of $487 arises. Sell afterwards and nothing arises for tax purposes at all.

The calculation is in dollars because the price series is in dollars. The tax office counts the euro amount at the exchange rate of the day, which comes from an exchange tax report or a portfolio tool. Which providers show the holding period cleanly for each tranche is set out in our comparison of crypto tax software.

The 1,000 euro threshold is a cliff, not an allowance

Section 23 (3) sentence 5 puts it literally: gains remain tax free where the total gain from private disposal transactions in the calendar year came to less than 1,000 euros. The threshold has stood at 1,000 euros since 2024; before that it was 600 euros.

Two details decide the tax bill. First, it is the total gain from all private disposal transactions of the calendar year that counts, not the individual sale. An investor who sells gold or a collection at a gain inside the deadline alongside SHIB puts everything into one pot. Second, it is a cliff. At a total gain of 999 euros everything stays tax free; at 1,000 euros the full amount becomes taxable, not merely the one euro above the line.

For small SHIB positions that has a reassuring consequence. Anyone who stays below the threshold across the whole year does not have to hit the deadline to the day. The record-keeping obligation is untouched by this, because whether the threshold held has to be evidenced if it is questioned.

Losses from 2026: what they can be set against

A loss from a private disposal transaction does not travel into the general loss pot. Subsection 3 sentence 7 limits it expressly: losses may be offset only up to the amount of the gain the taxpayer realised from private disposal transactions in the same calendar year. A SHIB loss cannot be set against salary, rental income or equity gains.

Anything left over is not forfeited, under sentence 8. The remainder reduces income from private disposal transactions in the immediately preceding year or in the years that follow. A loss from 2026 can therefore be carried back into 2025 where gains of the same kind stood there, and otherwise carried forward without a time limit. The remaining amount is assessed by the tax office, and for that it has to be declared in the Anlage SO form.

The difference from a total loss matters here, as in a project that has been wound up or a wallet that has been lost. The deadline does not bite in the same way there, because there is no disposal. What applies in those cases is set out in our article on the tax treatment of a total loss.

The cut-off date for all of this is December 31, 2026. A sale on January 2 falls into a new calendar year and meets other gains there, or none at all.

A reform of the holding period is still outstanding

The twelve months are not a law of nature. Berlin has been discussing scrapping or extending the holding period for crypto assets for years, and the point resurfaces with every parliamentary term. Were a change to come, it would move the very line this article is about.

Reliable statements are not available so far. We track where the matter stands, which wordings are in circulation and what has been heard from the Finance Ministry on our page on the status of the crypto holding period reform. Until something else stands there, the law as it is applies, and the law as it is knows the one-year deadline.

Our assessment: the gap to the record is the loudest figure

In the view of this newsroom, the 94.2 percent gap to the record is the most frequently quoted and the least useful figure on Shiba Inu. The value measures a five-year period over which the circulating supply, the market and the body of holders have all changed. The evidence stands above: 589.24 trillion tokens in circulation against an initial supply of one quadrillion, and a market value of $2.95 billion that is composed differently from 2021.

The twelve-month window, by contrast, is useful, because it coincides with the tax deadline. There stands a loss of 48.6 percent, a one-year high of $0.00001056 on October 27, 2025 and a one-year low of $0.00000411 on July 17, 2026. Anyone who bought inside that window has a decision to take, and it has a date. Anyone who bought earlier has nothing left to decide for tax purposes.

Against that it has to be said that tax should never decide a sale on its own. A loss realised only so that it can be offset is a real loss and not an accounting trick. And the threshold means the question simply does not arise for many positions.

SHIB holding period: after a year the loss no longer counts

1. Pull the tax report or the transaction export from your own exchange and note the acquisition date for each tranche. Which venues deliver a usable export is set out in our comparison of crypto exchanges.
2. Mark which tranches will still be under twelve months on December 31, 2026. Only for those is a sale a taxable event at all.
3. Check whether there are other gains from private disposal transactions in 2026 against which a loss could be offset. A portfolio tool takes that calculation off your hands; the duty to keep evidence remains.

(As of October 17, 2026. This article is not investment advice. It is not tax advice either. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. A total loss of the capital invested is possible with crypto assets.)