Shiba inu began as a prank cryptocurrency, but who is laughing now?

<p>Bitcoin and all of the other major cryptocurrencies plummeted overnight, but one coin defied the trend.</p> <p>On Thursday morning, amid a sea of red in the cryptocurrency market, one coin remained the brightest shade of green.</p> <p>The dog cryptocurrency shiba inu (SHIB) has continued to shatter records in its best-ever week, rising more than 111% and hitting a new high shortly after 6am after rising 40% overnight.</p> <p>According to CoinGecko, SHIB reached US$0.00008088 earlier this morning, a 140 million percent increase over its November low.</p> <p>While the price may appear insignificant, it represents a massive increase over the coin's initial listing price of US$0.000000000972 in August 2020 and comes on a day when bitcoin and the majority of other major coins fell sharply.</p> <p>Created in August 2020 as a spin-off of dogecoin by an anonymous user going by the moniker "Ryoshi," SHIB has now surpassed the market capitalisation of its predecessor, surpassing the $US30 billion mark.</p> <p>The coin, which is named after the Japanese dog, is now closing the gap on dogecoin, which is currently ranked tenth in terms of market capitalisation at $US31 billion.</p> <p>The majority of the increase is attributed to rumours that the coin will be listed on trading platform Robinhood.</p> <p>Ironically, those rumours have resulted in SHIB surpassing Robinhood's market cap of US$30 billion.</p> <p>Without citing sources, Coinmomo, a cryptocurrency analysis website, reported over the weekend that SHIB would be listed on Robinhood on Monday.</p> <p>Although the coin was not listed on Monday, Robinhood had already sent a survey to users asking which cryptocurrencies they traded, including shiba inu.</p> <p>At the time of press, a Change.org petition urging Robinhood to include SHIB on its platform had garnered more than 360,000 signatures.</p> <p>Twitter users are bullish on the coin, particularly following a few pointed remarks from Robinhood's chief financial officer on Wednesday, Australian time.</p>