Shiba Inu Price Struggles, Shibarium TVL Declines: Is It Time to Sell SHIB?

Shiba Inu price continues to struggle and has been left behind by other popular meme coins. This underperformance is likely because of the ongoing decline in Shibarium’s total value locked (TVL) and its fees. So, is buying Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) safe as the SHIB price lacks momentum?

Shiba Inu Price Struggles As Shibarium TVL Sinks

Shibarium is one reason why the Shiba Inu price has underperformed the crypto market. According to DeFi Llama, the Shibarium’s TVL has dropped from $6.27 million in December to $3.65 million on January 16.

All parts of its ecosystem have dropped in this period. ShibaSwap’s TVL has dropped by 18% in the last 30 days, while WoofSwap, ChewySwap, and Marswap have fallen by over 20% in this period. 

More data shows that while Shibarium’s transactions have just crossed 800 million, the fees collected have dropped. This has an impact in the amount of BONE tokens converted to SHIB and incinerated has continued to drop. 

SHIB Price Has Formed a Falling Wedge

On the positive side, the Shiba Inu coin has formed a falling wedge chart pattern, indicating an eventual comeback. This pattern is made up of two falling trendlines that connects the higher lows and lower lows in a period. It usually leads to a strong breakout, especially when the two trendlines are nearing their confluence level. 

Therefore, Shiba Inu price may soon stage a strong comeback and potentially retest the important resistance level at $0.00003330, the highest point in December. This target is about 50% above the current level. 

Virtuals Protocol Coin is Beating Shiba Inu Coin

Virtuals Price has done better than Shiba Inu in the past few months. It has jumped by over 3,000% since May last year, while the value of SHIB is down by 10%.

This performance is mostly because of the sector rotation to artificial intelligence (AI) related tokens as NVIDIA’s market cap surged to over $3 trillion. The VIRTUAL price has also jumped because of its strong AI agent ecosystem growth. The chart below shows that some of its ecosystem projects like GAME, aixbt, and VaderAI have become multi-million-dollar assets. 

Is VIRTUAL a Better Buy Than Shiba Inu?

Technicals suggest that the VIRTUAL price has more upside in the near term. It formed a long-legged doji candlestick pattern on Monday as its sell-off intensified. This pattern has a long lower shadow and a very small body, signaling that it opened and closed at the same price. It is one of the most popular reversal candlestick patterns, which explains why it has rebounded.

Therefore, the coin may continue rising as bulls target the all-time high at $5.2520, which is about 40% above the current level. The risk, however, is that the coin may form a double-top pattern whose neckline is at this week’s low of $2.2382. As such, technically, Shiba Inu and VIRTUAL are good buys, but their immediate resistance levels will be key.