Last Friday, while most of my non-crypto friends were busy grilling hot dogs for the Fourth of July weekend, I was hunched over my laptop at 11 p.m. trying to make sense of an oddly bullish Shiba Inu (SHIB) chart. I know—romantic. But that single June 29 candle pulled me down a rabbit hole that’s kept me caffeinated ever since, and I want to lay out everything I’ve found, tangents and all.
Here’s What Actually Happened
On June 29, SHIB snapped out of a four-week chop zone (roughly 0.0000165–0.0000183) and printed what technicians call an “inside week” breakout. In plain English, the entire previous week’s price action fit snugly inside the range of the week before that—an equilibrium winding a spring. When something finally gives, volume tends to explode, and that’s precisely what played out. According to Coinalyze’s aggregated order-book data, spot + perp volumes combined hit $648 million for the 24-hour session—a 212% jump over the prior Thursday. Watching it live felt a bit like seeing a dormant volcano exhale.
Why I’m Obsessing Over the Whale Wallets
I’ve noticed that SHIB’s retail crowd can push price in the short term, but the directional commitment still belongs to a small cadre of very large holders—whales who don’t tweet, but absolutely move markets. Over the weekend I pulled Etherscan exports for wallets holding ≥1 trillion SHIB (that’s about $18 million a pop at current prices). Here’s what jumped out:
- Between June 28 (evening UTC) and July 2, five wallets added a combined 8.2 trillion SHIB. The timing coincides almost perfectly with the breakout candle.
- Three of those addresses have a transaction history that ties back to Jump Trading’s labeled wallets, according to breadcrumbs on Breadcrumbs. Can I confirm they’re still Jump? Nope. But the pattern is suspiciously similar to Jump’s M.O. in the Solana ecosystem—bulk buys during liquidity holes.
- The average cost basis on-chain for those inflows sits at 0.0000172, smack in the middle of that June 29 candle’s body. In other words, they weren’t frontrunning the move—they joined it.
I can’t say definitively that this accumulation is strategic rather than speculative, but whales rarely spray money around without a plan. At the very least, it tells me the narrative that “only degens care about SHIB” is outdated.
A Quick Tangent on Inside-Week Candles (Because My DMs Asked)
An inside week is essentially the weekly cousin of the more familiar inside day. It signals waning volatility followed by a potential squeeze. In Legacy Land™—think S&P futures—traders often combine the setup with volume cues. On June 29, SHIB’s daily volume printed the third-highest reading of 2024, only behind the ETF-approval mania in March and the ill-fated ‘Robinhood adds SHIB’ rumor day in May. That combo—inside range plus near-record volume—doesn’t guarantee upside continuation, but historically it’s been a high-probability volatility expansion. In my experience, crypto rarely breaks this rule.
Yes, the Burn Mechanism Still Matters
Whenever I write about SHIB, someone inevitably reminds me that the project’s burn portal is “all hopium.” Fair. Still, data is data: According to Shibburn, roughly 410.72 trillion SHIB has been torched to date, with 7.8 billion burned in June alone. That’s a marginal supply sink of 0.0019% per month at current pace—tiny, but non-zero, and psychologically supportive when buyers are already leaning bullish. Call it a placebo, but sometimes placebo is enough.
Linking It Back to Macro (Because Everything Is Macro)
I can’t ignore that Bitcoin dominance has been leaking since mid-June, slipping from 56.9% to 54.1% at the time of writing. Historically, that sort of bleed lights a fire under high-beta altcoins. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s impending Pectra hard fork—now road-mapped for Q1 2025—has traders reassessing L2 and memecoin plays baked into the ETH narrative. SHIB, sitting on the Shibarium L2, is one such proxy. In other words, the stars are at least partially aligned for a rotational bid.
If You’re Wondering About Funding Rates
Perpetual swaps tell the real sentiment story in my book. On Bybit, SHIB funding flipped from slightly negative (-0.006%) on June 27 to +0.037% within 12 hours after the breakout. Binance saw a similar arc. Those aren’t eye-watering numbers—anything above +0.1% would make me nervous—but they do confirm that longs are finally willing to pay up. What I like even more is that open interest only climbed 5.7% even as price pumped 11%. That means we’re not looking at full-throttle degeneracy yet.
The One Chart That’s Confusing Me
I’ll be honest: the daily active addresses (DAA) metric has not spiked in tandem with price. According to IntoTheBlock, DAA for SHIB hovered around 4,500 on June 30, barely up from its 30-day average. Normally, a healthy rally sees on-chain engagement follow price. Either whales are doing all the heavy lifting (likely) or retail simply hasn’t noticed (also likely). Part of me wonders if we’re headed for a ‘stealth rally’ before the crowd wakes up. Or maybe I’m reading tea leaves in the dark. Time will tell.
Remember the Last Time We Saw This Pattern?
Quick flashback: October 2021, SHIB posted a similar inside-week breakout, volumes surged, and the token ripped 370% in three weeks. Different market regime, yes, but the fractal is eerily close when you overlay price. I’m not predicting another 4x (I’m allergic to straight-line moon targets), but I can’t ignore the rhyme.
Why This Matters for Your Portfolio
If you’re a long-only investor, the biggest takeaway is that whale accumulation + structural breakout often front-runs narrative shifts. Even if you never touch SHIB, the pattern offers a framework for spotting other altcoin rotations. On the flip side, traders looking to get fancy might consider setting invalidation just below 0.0000165—that’s the previous range low. Fall back inside, and the thesis evaporates faster than my coffee supply.
Voices From the Trenches
“We were net buyers into the dip because Shibarium’s gas usage keeps surprising to the upside.” — Pseudonymous market-maker ‘Kong’ in a Telegram chat, July 1
I reached out to two liquidity providers I trust. One shrugged off SHIB as “meme beta.” The other, quoted above, is allocating spot inventory to farm Shibarium fees. That divergence is actually bullish in my mind—disagreement builds markets.
A Short, Nerdy Note on Shibarium
Mainnet transactions have averaged 450k per day since mid-June, up from 107k in early May. That’s a 4x jump, yet gas fees remain sub-penny thanks to BONE denominated costs. It’s not Solana throughput, but it’s also not ghost-chain metrics. I think the market’s only partially priced this in.
Potential Bearish Catalysts I Can’t Ignore
- A macro rug pull—Powell surprises with a hawkish Jackson Hole tone in late August.
- Ethereum’s Dencun-era fee compression makes alt-L2 narratives feel redundant.
- A celebrity memecoin frenzy drains liquidity from existing meme plays (looking at you, Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER).
I’d keep those in the back of your mind if you’re planning to size up.
Wrapping Up—So, What Do We Do With This?
If you’ve made it this far—cheers. My own plan is painfully simple: I’m long spot SHIB with a trailing stop below 0.0000158 (the 50-day EMA). If price escalates toward 0.000022, I’ll begin scaling out and rotating into ETH if it’s still lagging. No leverage—my cat needs food even if the trade implodes. As always, this isn’t advice; it’s me thinking out loud over too much espresso.
In any case, that June 29 candle served as a neon sign that the quiet accumulation phase might be ending. Whether that turns into a sustainable trend or a week-long head fake depends on how many more whales join the party—and whether retail finally logs back in after their BBQs. I’ll keep watching the order books. For now, the bulls have earned a glimmer of hope, and frankly, after a spring filled with regulatory gloom, I’ll take any glimmer I can get.
