Meme-coins and decentralised finance (DeFi) get a lot of bad press – but what happens when bad press pays?

This question has played out in the crypto space in August 2022.

And the answer is that top meme-coin Shiba Inu and leading DeFi project EverGrow have given returns far higher than Bitcoin. Shiba Inu has grown 26.3% in the past seven days and EverGrow is up 24.6% – meanwhile Bitcoin is down -1.26% and Ether is up just 1.36% in the week leading to August 17th.

Had you invested in Shiba Inu and EverGrow, you'd have made a quarter of your investment back already.

Let's take a look at what caused these price pumps.

We'll examine what's just around the corner for Shiba and EverGrow.

Ready to go?

Then read on.

Shiba Inu – whales take SHIB to 12th place in crypto rankings 

The price of Shiba Inu pumped from $0.000012 to $0.000017 within 48 hours between August 12-14.

The price spike far outpaced other top cryptocurrencies and allowed Shiba Inu to flip DAI, Polygon and Avalanche to become the 12th biggest token by market cap.

But what caused it?

According to crypto analysis firm Santiment, it was large Shiba Inu holders (aka whales) who caused the SHIB pump this last week. These large wallets produced more than 433 SHIB transactions valued at more than $100,000.

The surge in transactions saw the most SHIB activity in four months – while some of these transactions were sells, the majority were large buys which helped to push the Shiba Inu significantly up.

In terms of trading indicators, the price of SHIB broke past its 200-day moving average.

Shiba Inu is trading at $0.0000156 as of August 17th.

EverGrow – market cap jumps 33.2% in five days 

On August 12 the chairman of EverGrow named the modest market cap of EverGrow at $75 million – today, that's now $99.9 million.

EverGrow is a token with a much smaller market cap than Shiba Inu up at $9.1 billion.

But that only makes the potential for returns even greater.

EverGrow is the leading reflection token paying stablecoin passive income in Binance-Pegged USD (BUSD). Since launching in only September last year, EverGrow has paid more than $37.5 million to its holders – during the bull rally last October/November, the EverGrow market cap swelled to well over $1.5 billion.

And then came the crypto crash.

But while other DeFi projects (think Terra Luna) and DeFi protocols (think Celsius or Voyager) have completely collapsed, EverGrow has emerged as a leader to revolutionise the DeFi space.

How?

Through a mechanism for passive return that cannot fail – reflections.

EverGrow charges a transaction tax on every buy/sell order at 14%. An 8% cut of this is redistributed instantly in BUSD to all holders. It works because any large sell-offs still contribute to passive income.

Speaking of which, news recently dropped that had you bought $5,000 of EverGrow back in October last year you would have made $12,580 in BUSD by now.

Sounds interesting?

That's what the traders who pushed the price hike way beyond Bitcoin also thought.

Will Shiba Inu and EverGrow continue to pump?

First of all, we need to understand what's in store for these projects.

Shiba Inu:

• The Shiba Inu pump comes just after the Shiba Inu announcement of Shiba Eternity – the collectible card game involving Shiboshi NFTs and created in development with Australian-based PlaySide Studios
• Shiba Inu is expected to launch the Shibarium layer-2 blockchain solution in the next few months
• Once the Shibarium is live, Shiboshi NFTs, Shiba Inu tokens as well as the rewards token TREAT and the gas and governance token BONE will also become live on the native blockchain

Each of these developments is expected to draw in huge investment into Shiba Inu. In anticipation of this pump, Shiba Inu whales began buying up SHIB at its low prices this August 2022.

EverGrow:

• EverGrow is gearing up for the launch of its LunaSky NFT marketplace – this will challenge Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces with low gas fees
• Once LunaSky is launched, EverGrow will launch the world's first crypto-integrated content subscription platform (Crator)
• The profits from each of these tokens will be pumped straight back into burning EverGrow – from just a 2% transaction tax, so far more than 53% of EverGrow has been removed from supply

These developments are also expected to bring new investors into EverGrow. But since the market cap is still so low the potential for explosive returns are very likely – the Shiba Inu pump over 20% required $1 billion while the EverGrow pump over 20% required just $25 million.

That's why investors are buying up EverGrow in August 2022 – and also why a much smaller influx of new investment can send prices spiking much higher than Bitcoin.

Should I buy Shiba Inu or EverGrow in August 2022?

Diversification is always key in cryptocurrency investing – as is researching each project and having enough faith to keep holding through bear markets and price drops.

Shiba Inu received bad press this year as its prices plummeted alongside the crash and bears claimed SHIB had no utilities.

However, whale purchases are clear signs of strong investor sentiment.

The flurry of new development and creation of extra utility could put Shiba Inu firmly back on the map if it holds its 12th position – or continues to grow higher. There are a lot of reasons to buy Shiba Inu in August 2022.

Equally, EverGrow struggled as DeFi protocols offering passive income collapsed from May onwards.

Since then, the project has gone over and above to prove transparency by core team members publishing their wallets, or by holding regular AMAs and showing their faces – unlike the anonymous lead developer Shytoshi Kusama behind Shiba Inu.

It was also since May that EverGrow rewards surpassed $37.5 million and it became the leading reflection token paying stablecoin passive income.

These developments have brought renewed faith into DeFi – when the next bull market comes, EverGrow is sure to be ahead of the pack.

Since it has such huge potential to grow in market cap EverGrow is a great addition to your portfolio alongside stalwarts like Bitcoin and popular meme coins like Shiba Inu. At the end of the day, if getting a good return on investment is your priority, your portfolio will rely on betting on a range of assets you believe will stay relevant in 3,5 or even 20 years' time.