Shiba Inu has outperformed bitcoin over the past week even as both tokens lost ground in dollar terms, pushing the SHIB/BTC ratio to its strongest level in four weeks and putting a single price zone at the center of the near-term outlook: the yearly low of $0.00000405.
On Friday evening in Europe, SHIB changed hands at roughly $0.0000043, about 0.5% below its level 24 hours earlier, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin, by contrast, traded near $68,835 after falling 3.5% in a day, with an intraday trough of $67,922. On Kraken, bitcoin closed the UTC day at $68,840, down 9.1% from a week earlier, while SHIB lost 5.4% over the same stretch.
Measured in satoshis -- the smallest unit of bitcoin -- one million SHIB cost 6,238 satoshi on Friday evening, up from 6,110 on Thursday and 5,831 on November 8. One bitcoin bought about 16.0 billion SHIB, compared with 17.2 billion five days earlier. The ratio has risen about 7% since November 8, closing higher on four of five sessions, and last stood at this level on October 16.
The relative move reflects how selling pressure spreads through a falling market. When bitcoin drops sharply, holders tend to unload the assets they own most of and can exit most easily -- bitcoin itself, ether and large listed tokens. SHIB, already down more than 42% this year, has less of that overhang left, so it sometimes declines less than the market leader even though it is generally considered riskier.
That cushion has not translated into dollar gains. Since January 1, SHIB has fallen 42.4% on Kraken against a 22.4% decline for bitcoin; since October 1, the figures are 25.9% and 18.9%. Over the past 30 days the two are roughly level, each down about 15%.
Note: Prices from CoinGecko; percentage changes from Kraken daily closes.
Derivatives data from OKX show positioning shifting back toward the long side. Funding on the SHIB perpetual returned to positive territory at the 09:00 and 17:00 CET settlements, at 0.01% each -- the standard rate -- meaning longs are again paying shorts after a brief period in which shorts bore the cost. The long ratio, which compares accounts betting on gains with those betting on declines, rose to 2.48 on Friday from 2.37 a day earlier and was last higher on November 2 at 2.81.
Open interest across SHIB contracts on OKX stood at about $6.3 million on Friday evening, little changed from a week earlier, suggesting no large new positions were opened. Taker volume told a different story: sellers turned over about $6.16 million against $5.66 million for buyers, a sell-side surplus of roughly half a million dollars. Trading volume in SHIB contracts rose to about $11.9 million, the highest since October 28, while the price eased only slightly -- a combination that suggests buyers absorbed the selling.
"The relative strength is clearly visible in the data," the picture shows, though the token remains below all its key moving averages. The 20-day average of daily closes sits at about $0.00000461, the 50-day at about $0.0000051 and the 200-day at about $0.00000508. Friday's intraday low of $0.000004155 was weaker than Thursday's, and the session marked the lowest level since July 24, when SHIB touched $0.0000041 on Kraken.
The backdrop for the broader market has been unsettled. Bitcoin slipped below $70,000 on Kraken for the first time since August 20 after Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang stepped down on Thursday and new U.S. producer price data landed, extending a sell-off into Friday. More than $1.3 billion in crypto futures were liquidated within 24 hours, and open interest on OKX's bitcoin contracts fell by more than 10% in nine hours. Funding on the largest bitcoin perpetual turned negative, reaching minus 0.0064% at the 9 a.m. CET settlement -- the lowest since early August -- a sign that short bets now dominate leverage.
For SHIB, the calendar offers no catalyst of its own before November 20. The path will be set by U.S. economic data and flows into bitcoin exchange-traded funds, with two broad scenarios in play.
In a recovery, if relative strength holds and bitcoin stabilizes, SHIB could climb back to $0.0000045, the zone of its daily highs from November 9 to 11. A close above that level would open the way to the 20-day line at $0.00000461. The precondition is that bitcoin does not slide toward $65,000 -- even a strong memecoin cannot escape a double-digit decline in the market leader for long.
In a sell-off, a break below Friday's intraday low of $0.000004155 would bring the $0.0000041 to $0.00000405 zone into view. A close beneath it would mark SHIB's weakest level in Kraken's daily data since November 2024. At that point relative strength against bitcoin would matter little, because liquidations of the many small long accounts would add fresh selling pressure.
The yearly low itself was set on June 25 at $0.000004048. SHIB tested the area repeatedly in July, falling to $0.000004059 on July 17 and $0.0000041 on July 24, before jumping to close around $0.0000053 on July 26.
For leveraged traders, the cost structure has shifted since Thursday. With funding at 0.01% per eight-hour settlement, a long position carrying 1,000 euros of margin at tenfold leverage -- 10,000 euros of notional exposure -- pays about 1 euro per settlement and roughly 3 euros a day, or about 20 euros over a week. That equals about 2% of the margin regardless of price direction. The liquidation threshold carries more weight: a tenfold long opened at $0.0000043 is closed, depending on the venue, after a decline of roughly 9% to 10%, or near $0.0000039 -- below the yearly low. Anyone treating the $0.00000405 zone as a safety net would need substantially lower leverage.
