The rate at which Shiba Inu ($SHIB) tokens are being burned has jumped 12,000% to 11.9 million tokens at a time in which the price of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency has been dropping amid a wider cryptocurrency market downturn.
According to data from Shibburn, a platform dedicated to tracking SHIB burns, the burn rate spiked by over 12,000% in 24 hours with the largest single burn transaction involving nearly 5.1 million tokens being sent to a null address, effectively removing them from circulation.
Since the meme-inspired cryptocurrency was launched, around 410.63 trillion tokens have been destroyed, from a total supply of 1 quadrillion. Its burning mechanism is intended to reduce the overall supply of SHIB tokens, reducing supply and potentially leading to price rises if demand remains steady or rises. The strategy is multifaceted, encompassing both automated and manual burns.
While the burn rate skyrocketed, the price of SHIB did not follow suit. The coin fell by 11% over the last 24 hours in a cryptocurrency market downturn that saw the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin lose 0.6% of its value and Ethereum lose 2.5% of its value over the same period.
As CryptoGlobe reported, the meme-inspired cryptocurrency could be facing significant selling pressure as massive whales have recently deposited over 4 trillion tokens onto Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in a potential sell-off sign.
Notably, data shared by on-chain cryptocurrency analyst OnchainDataNerd on the microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) shows that 10 different wallets deposited 4.29 trillion SHIB tokens worth nearly $100 million on Coinbase, after accumulating in two separate periods, September 2021 and March 2024, with an average purchase price of $0.000013.
With Shiba Inu currently trading well above $0.000017, a complete sell-off could generate a substantial profit of millions of dollars for the whales involved.
These potential whale sell-offs come shortly after a massive cryptocurrency investor started accumulating SHIB, pouring millions onto the meme-inspired cryptocurrency to accumulate billions of tokens.
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