Crypto analyst Daffy has made an aggressive prediction that Shiba Inu (SHIB) could surge by 1,150% to reach roughly $0.00009 by 2026, edging past its October 2021 all-time high. This forecast comes at a time when sentiment around the meme coin is quietly shifting, despite a prolonged period of weakness that saw the token add another zero to its price and drift below key levels.
The optimism is partly tied to the potential for clearer U.S. crypto regulation by 2026, specifically through the proposed CLARITY Act. This legislation aims to provide a clear definition for how digital assets are regulated, which could improve overall market conditions.
SHIB is also benefiting from growing exchange-traded fund (ETF) chatter. While a standalone SHIB ETF is not in sight, the token has been mentioned as a possible inclusion in future ETF baskets. Asset manager T. Rowe Price has listed SHIB among assets that could appear in a spot basket ETF, and Grayscale has reportedly identified SHIB as eligible under the SEC’s Generic Listing Standard framework. This speculation tends to spark interest as ETFs can open doors to institutional capital.
On the development front, the Shiba Inu ecosystem is not standing still. A key plan is the rollout of Zama’s Fully Homomorphic Encryption technology on the Shibarium layer-2 network in early 2026. This upgrade could enable private smart contracts and potentially attract developers focused on privacy applications, adding depth to SHIB's ecosystem beyond pure speculation.
Separately, another analyst, Szymanski, has revived the highly speculative claim that SHIB could eventually reach $1. He argues that meme coins like SHIB move on "belief, timing, and attention" rather than traditional logic, and have defied critics in past cycles. However, this target faces immense criticism due to SHIB's massive circulating supply of 589.24 trillion tokens, which would imply an impossible market capitalization of approximately $589 trillion. Critics highlight this supply, along with ecosystem concerns, as insurmountable barriers, despite the community having burned approximately 41% of the total supply to date.
