9.76 times as much trading in PEPE: Shiba Inu's market-cap lead shrinks by two thirds in a year

Trading in Shiba Inu is as quiet on Tuesday as it has been for weeks; trading in the younger memecoin PEPE is not. SHIB stands at $5.09 per million tokens on Tuesday evening, which CoinGecko puts at €4.53 per million, 1.73 percent above Monday evening's level. Turnover over the past 24 hours comes to $47.96 million. PEPE is 12.23 percent higher over the same period and changes hands for $468.23 million, 9.76 times the amount, on a market capitalisation that reaches only 64.6 percent of SHIB's.

For a holder in Europe this shift is no footnote. Daily turnover decides how expensive the exit becomes, and it helps decide whether an exchange keeps offering the euro pair at all. Holding SHIB since the record leaves a paper loss of 94.10 percent; buying within the past twelve months leaves 49.75 percent. Both figures demand a decision, and both decisions hang on liquidity.

Shiba Inu and PEPE: Tuesday's turnover

The position in figures, as of Tuesday evening, on CoinGecko market data. Shiba Inu: market capitalisation $2.999 billion, or €2.669 billion, rank 36 by market capitalisation, daily turnover $47.96 million, daily range $4.94 to $5.14 per million. PEPE: market capitalisation $1.937 billion, rank 53, daily turnover $468.23 million. Dogecoin, the oldest of the three, sits at rank 12 with a market capitalisation of $12.694 billion and turns over $426.76 million. Bitcoin reaches $82,485 the same evening, up 0.76 percent, so the broad market is barely moving.

The previous day shows the same picture in milder form. At Monday's close CoinGecko reported turnover of $42.0 million for SHIB, $242.4 million for PEPE and $394.2 million for Dogecoin. The gap between SHIB and PEPE stood at a factor of 5.8 and widened over the course of the day to 9.8. A range of 5.8 to 9.8 is the accurate description; a single number would not be.

Trading volume explained: why turnover sets the spread

Trading volume is the sum of all purchases and sales in a day, measured in dollars. The spread is the distance between the highest bid and the lowest ask in the order book, that is, the amount you pay twice when buying and selling immediately. The two are connected: the more turnover a pair carries, the more traders post bids into it continuously, and the closer the two sides sit together.

With a token trading 94 percent below its record, that is the practically most important point in this whole article. A price gain of 2 percent earns nothing if spread and slippage cost 1.5 percent on the way out. Slippage here means that an order eats through several price levels of the order book, because the first one does not hold enough on the other side, and the average price turns out worse than the quoted one.

This is exactly where SHIB and PEPE part ways on Tuesday. The $47.96 million of daily turnover is spread across every exchange and every pair in the world. Of that, the five largest venues contribute $5.04 million at KuCoin, $3.96 million at Binance, $2.83 million at Poloniex, $2.70 million at Upbit and $1.99 million at OKX, according to CoinGecko's ticker list. What is left of that in euros and at a venue with a MiCA licence is a fraction. How small that fraction turns out we measured on Monday: only 1.59 percent of SHIB trading runs in euros, as set out in our analysis of the SHIB order book of October 19.

What has shifted since Monday

On October 19 SHIB stood at $4.98 per million; today it is $5.09, so 2.2 percent more. Monday's finding was the thin euro side of the order book; today's finding is that the other side of the comparison has changed. On Monday Bitcoin was the yardstick; today it is a memecoin from the same sector that is smaller and still ties up more trading. The daily high at $5.14 per million held twice on Tuesday, as did the lower edge of the daily range at $4.94. What moved was not the price but the attention.

The market-cap gap: $3.00 billion in October 2025, $1.06 billion today

The real finding sits not in the day but in the year. On October 21, 2025 the market capitalisation of Shiba Inu came to $6.01 billion, that of PEPE to $3.01 billion. The gap stood at $3.00 billion, with PEPE reaching 50.1 percent of SHIB's market capitalisation. Today SHIB stands at $2.999 billion and PEPE at $1.937 billion. The gap has fallen to $1.06 billion, by 64.6 percent, and PEPE reaches 64.6 percent of SHIB's market capitalisation. The calculation rests on CoinGecko's daily series for all three tokens.

Both have lost ground, but to differing degrees. SHIB gave up 50.1 percent of its market capitalisation over those twelve months, PEPE 35.6 percent, Dogecoin 58.1 percent. The sector as a whole has shrunk, and within the sector the order has shifted. Looking only at the price shows none of this, because all three are down.

The crossing mark: $3.29 per million SHIB

From the gap a level can be calculated that appears nowhere else. In circulation are 589.24 trillion SHIB. Dividing today's PEPE market capitalisation of $1.937 billion by that circulating supply yields a SHIB price of $3.29 per million. Below that value Shiba Inu would be smaller than PEPE by market capitalisation, provided PEPE stands still. From today's $5.09 that is a distance of 35.4 percent to the downside.

The same calculation from the other side: PEPE would have to gain 54.8 percent to catch SHIB in market capitalisation, assuming SHIB stands still. Neither figure is an expectation, and neither works as a target. The number is a yardstick against which the coming weeks will show whether the year's shift continues or comes to a halt.

Turnover ratio: 1.60 percent at SHIB, 24.18 percent at PEPE

The turnover ratio sets daily turnover against market capitalisation and says what share of a holding changes hands in a day. At Shiba Inu it comes to 1.60 percent on Tuesday, at Dogecoin 3.36 percent, at PEPE 24.18 percent. The PEPE value sits at fifteen times the SHIB value.

A high ratio is no merit in itself. The value also shows that a large part of this trading is short term and can vanish again the next day. A ratio of 1.60 percent shows something else instead: the SHIB holding largely lies still. In a token whose investment case lives entirely on attention, a dormant circulating supply is a risk rather than a cushion.

Sector rotation in memecoins: how it ran at Dogecoin

Sector rotation means money migrating within a group of tokens without leaving the group. Dogecoin has demonstrated it. In October 2025 the oldest memecoin still stood at $30.30 billion, five times SHIB's market capitalisation; today it is $12.69 billion and therefore 4.2 times. Its turnover nonetheless reaches 8.9 times SHIB's today, at $426.76 million.

The mechanism behind it is unspectacular. New tokens launch with a small circulating supply and without legacy holdings that want to sell into the first rise. The older a memecoin becomes, the more holders sit trapped at higher entry prices, and the more supply meets every price advance. SHIB has 99.96 percent of its tokens in circulation, so no new supply arrives from unlocks; the supply comes out of the portfolios of the 2021 holders.

What the one-year period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act triggers in a swap

Anyone now considering swapping SHIB for another memecoin should know a rule that many overlook. A token-for-token swap is a disposal for tax purposes and not a transfer. Under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, a gain from private disposals stays tax free if more than one year lies between purchase and sale. The swap ends that period for the holding given up and starts it at zero for the new one.

In practice that means: if your SHIB holding is down, the swap realises a loss that can be offset against gains from other private disposals of the same year, and only against those. If it is up and less than a year old, the swap costs tax on the gain. The one-year period runs separately for every purchase tranche, not for the portfolio as a whole. The cut-off for offsetting within a year is December 31.

That the tax office learns about it has been the norm since the eighth version of the EU directive on administrative cooperation. The Federal Central Tax Office operates the reporting channel provided for it. Your own records do not replace that; they only protect you from standing there without evidence when a question comes.

Measuring order book depth on your own account

The figures in this article are world figures. What counts sits in the order book of your exchange, and that can be looked up in two minutes. Open the SHIB euro pair, read off the highest bid and the lowest ask and form the difference as a percentage of the midpoint. That gives the spread. Then enter the actual number of tokens in the sell window, without submitting the order, and compare the proceeds shown with the number of tokens times the mid price. The gap between them is the slippage.

If spread and slippage together come to more than 1 percent, that argues, for a position meant to be sold only in parts anyway, for smaller partial orders or for a different venue. Which exchanges keep a deep euro order book and what they charge for it is set out in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

Custody and MiCA: where holders in Europe stand

MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto-assets and has governed step by step since 2024 who may offer crypto services in the EU. For a holder of SHIB that has two tangible consequences. First, the purchase route through an authorised provider is the only one where a European supervisor has jurisdiction in a dispute. Second, custody remains a separate decision, because a token in an exchange account belongs to its owner only as long as the exchange is solvent.

SHIB is a token on the Ethereum blockchain, with Shibarium as the associated layer-2 blockchain. Any wallet that manages Ethereum tokens can therefore hold SHIB, and a hardware wallet keeps the private key off the computer. Which devices deliver that at what price is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

Our assessment of the position at Shiba Inu

From this newsroom's point of view, Tuesday's turnover is the more important signal than the price. The evidence: a turnover ratio of 1.60 percent against 24.18 percent at PEPE, a market-cap gap that has fallen from $3.00 billion to $1.06 billion in twelve months, and 99.96 percent of tokens in circulation, so no inflow that revives trading by itself. That argues that SHIB is ceding share within its own sector to younger tokens.

Against it stands the counter-calculation: PEPE needs a 54.8 percent rise to reach parity, and a turnover ratio of 24 percent on a single day can vanish as quickly as it appeared. Added to that is October 27, the fifth anniversary of the SHIB record, which should bring the token additional attention. This is an assessment of the position, not a recommendation to buy or sell. As with any memecoin, a total loss is possible.

SHIB and PEPE: 35 percent of distance still separates the ranking

Tuesday evening's position in one sentence: Shiba Inu holds $5.09 per million and 36th place by market capitalisation, but is losing trading activity to a token that is smaller and moves more. Three steps turn that into work that can be done today.

1. Read off spread and slippage on your own account. Highest bid against lowest ask, then run your own token count through the sell window. More than 1 percent together is a reason to change venue; which one is deep enough in euros is shown by the exchange comparison.
2. Write down purchase tranches with dates. Every tranche has its own one-year period, and every swap ends it. Keeping that cleanly means knowing your offsettable loss before December 31; the tools for it are in the comparison of tax tools.
3. Separate custody from the trading decision. A holding meant to sit still does not have to sit in an exchange account. What a device costs and delivers is set out in the hardware wallet comparison.

The level against which the coming weeks can be read is $3.29 per million SHIB. Below it, Shiba Inu would be smaller than PEPE by market capitalisation. Above it the ranking stays as it is, even if the trading happens elsewhere.

(As of October 20, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)