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Should You Forget Bitcoin and Buy Shiba Inu Instead?

Source The Motley Fool

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has been getting a lot of attention in the past month, as the market believes an incoming pro-crypto White House will push the industry to new heights. The top digital asset has seen its price surge, and it currently sits around $100,000.

But Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) has outperformed Bitcoin in the last month, skyrocketing 46%. Perhaps this momentum is set to continue as we look toward 2025 and beyond.

Should you forget the world's most valuable cryptocurrency and buy some Shiba Inu tokens instead?

Not much more than a meme

Shiba Inu was created in 2020, building off the success of Dogecoin, which itself rose to popularity because of its logo of a dog meme that caught attention on the internet. Dogecoin is its own blockchain network, with functionality just as a peer-to-peer payment system. Shiba Inu's founders saw an opportunity to develop something that could be more useful.

That's why Shiba Inu was built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. This boosts its functionality with a wide ecosystem of decentralized applications. In theory, Shiba Inu should provide users and developers with a ton of utility.

However, adoption has been disappointing. This is despite there being an active scaling solution, called Shibarium, that speeds up transactions and lowers costs. Plus, Shiba Inu has a metaverse where users can buy virtual land.

Nonetheless, Shiba Inu is only accepted as a form of payment at 1,049 merchants worldwide. It doesn't have anywhere close to the ecosystem of financial services supporting it that Bitcoin does. And according to Electric Capital, a venture investment firm, Shiba Inu doesn't even crack the top 100 list of blockchain networks with the most developers working on it.

These factors don't bode well for its future. Even though Shiba Inu has soared 73% just in the past month (as of Dec. 5), I think you're better off staying far away.

Keep it simple

When choosing between Bitcoin and Shiba Inu, the choice is pretty clear. Investors should keep it simple and stick to the dominant cryptocurrency that has a long and successful history. There's no shortage of reasons why Bitcoin is a better asset to own.

For starters, its supply is capped at 21 million. This is a key feature of Bitcoin that isn't likely to ever change given that it would undermine the value of the network. Shiba Inu, on the other hand, has a gargantuan token supply of 589 trillion.

I believe Bitcoin's scarcity is precisely why the market views it as something worth owning, especially over the long term. Sure, Shiba Inu and other meme tokens might benefit from speculative behavior that has taken over the market right now, but that is typically short-lived. And that's no way to invest your hard-earned savings. This mental framework leads to owning a more proven asset, such as Bitcoin.

Despite trading at record highs, Bitcoin arguably still has significant upside. Because of its scarcity, Bitcoin is viewed as a digital gold. The value of all gold that has been mined is $17.7 trillion. If Bitcoin gets to this figure, it implies roughly ninefold upside from its current market cap of $2 trillion.

However, the crypto is more portable, transactable, and divisible than gold. And in a world that is becoming increasingly digital, it makes sense that Bitcoin can be a perceived as a better store of value than the precious metal. Its ultimate valuation could be even higher than gold's current market cap.

Investors might be drawn to Shiba Inu's recent price action. But buying and holding Bitcoin is a much better option.

Should you invest $1,000 in Bitcoin right now?

Before you buy stock in Bitcoin, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Bitcoin wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $872,947!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of December 9, 2024

Neil Patel and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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