Meme coins are no longer a joke. Recent trading frenzy over a digital currency called Shiba Inu – also called a meme or joke coin – has become the most valuable digital asset for Indians this Diwali, surpassing its rival Dogecoin with a global market capital of $40 billion.
Bitcoin, the new “Big B” is flexing its muscles as well, with its price surging to Rs 50 lakh in India. Cryptocurrency has the ability to emerge as the new investment option in the festival season to fund the future.
Going by this trend, Indian investors traded quite a bit of digital tokens this Diwali. We asked top Indian crypto exchanges such as— WazirX, Unocoin, and BuyUcoin —about the most preferred cryptocurrency by Indians this Diwali.
Shivam Thakral, CEO of BuyUcoin told that Shiba Inu (SHIB) has emerged as the most popular coin, as it delivered promising returns consistently. “SHIB is in the uptrend and is attracting both novice and experienced investors…the market expectation is that it will increase by 10 paisa more, by the end of Q4.” At the time of writing this article, SHIB is currently trading at Rs 0.004990.
A flurry of tweets by global leaders, including Elon Musk, helped strengthen SHIB’s popularity. Recently, a change.org petition has demanded Shiba Inu to get listed on Robinhood, after which the meme coin rallied on WazirX, clocking in transactions worth over $320 million over the last few days.
In addition, over the past one week, WazirX saw nearly 50 percent of its trading volume coming in from ‘Dogecoin Killer’ SHIB. Siddharth Menon, COO of WazirX cryptocurrency exchange, informed that the most traded tokens in terms of volume are Shiba Inu, Loopring, Tether, Bitcoin, Sandbox, and WazirX coins.
“Both WRX and SHIB are the top most traded tokens in India with the highest liquidity and volumes traded on the WazirX exchange. As for Sandbox, Loopring, these are VR games and rallying up ever since Facebook rebranded to Meta and announced its metaverse vision,” he added.
Thakral points out that cryptocurrencies other than SHIB that were traded the most in volume during Diwali are: Mana, Dogecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.
Interestingly, the month of November has historically been the best for Bitcoin with an average return on investment of 66 percent. Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO, and co-founder of Unocoin crypto exchange, noted that Bitcoin continues to be the “king” when it comes to Indians buying cryptocurrency.