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A great capital rotation is unfolding in the cryptocurrency market, putting the memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB) on the verge of falling out of the top 30 largest assets, according to CoinMarketCap.
Right now, SHIB is holding the 29th spot with a market capitalization of $3.24 billion, while the technology-focused blockchain NEAR Protocol, with a market capitalization of $3.19 billion, has narrowed the gap to a critical $50 million.
NEAR's 138% rally in May clearly illustrates the change in priorities. The inflow of new money into SHIB has completely stopped, while NEAR is aggressively accumulating market liquidity amid the boom in privacy and artificial intelligence.
Regulatory clarity pushes Shiba Inu (SHIB) out of the crypto top 30
SHIB's current decline is a direct result of the lack of fresh money in the meme sector. The ecosystem is not generating new powerful narratives, while the excessive supply of 81 trillion tokens on exchanges continues to pressure order books.
The situation is being worsened by a regulatory turn after FinCEN classified non-custodial mixers as entities that are not money services businesses, or non-MSBs. The synchronized Ethereum hard fork and the Kohaku upgrade, which eliminated the relayer vulnerability, finally restored confidence in protected transactions, and large investors began massively moving liquidity into legalized privacy.
While SHIB has no inflow of new capital, NEAR Protocol is capitalizing on opportunities thanks to tangible economic results and institutional interest - the volume of Bitwise's European NEAR Staking ETP has grown to $40 million, open interest in futures is breaking records with support from Arthur Hayes, and the market is already pricing in the June "dynamic resharding" upgrade.
Earlier this week, SHIB had already fallen to 30th place, and its current return one line higher looks like an unstable technical rebound. If new volumes do not enter Shiba Inu while NEAR continues to absorb liquidity through ETF demand and AI infrastructure, the displacement of the meme coin from the top 30 will become the inevitable finale for this relic of 2021.
Dan Burgin
