Shiba Inu (SHIB) Sell-Off Looms: Rising Reserves Could Push Price Lower

Shiba Inu (SHIB) has closed the past five days in negative territory, but a look at price alone doesn’t tell the full story. The token’s distribution remains heavily concentrated on exchanges, and recent activity suggests that holders are preparing to sell rather than accumulate. These conditions can weigh on market sentiment and leave SHIB exposed to further downward movement.

Rising SHIB Reserves Point to Selling Readiness

Shiba Inu’s presence on trading platforms has been increasing, with exchange reserves now exceeding 82.5 trillion SHIB, up from about 81 trillion earlier in the year. At the same time, exchange netflow has turned positive, meaning more tokens are being sent to exchanges than withdrawn. This combination of rising reserves and net inflows suggests that holders are preparing to sell rather than accumulate. 

The shift in behavior coincided with SHIB briefly climbing above $0.000009, near its highest level so far this year, before giving up part of its year-to-date gains, reflecting a market dominated by selling readiness.

SHIB Traders Pull Back While Whales Stay Active

The derivatives market adds another layer to the cautious outlook and reflects broader trends in trader behavior:

• Trading volume in SHIB derivatives fell by approximately 14% over the past 24 hours.
• Open interest also declined by around 2%.
• The token’s price dropped about 2% during the same period, reflecting fading confidence and limited appetite for leveraged positions.

Despite this, some signs of support are visible. Data from Santiment indicates a 111% increase in whale transactions, showing heightened activity among large holders. Additionally, CryptoQuant reports that daily active SHIB addresses have been steadily rising since the start of the year, consistently remaining above 3,000. This demonstrates ongoing on-chain engagement even amid recent price weakness.

Technical Outlook Shows Range-Bound Trading

From a technical perspective, Shiba Inu is currently consolidating after months of downward pressure. Following a prolonged downtrend since September, the token showed a brief rebound in the first few days of this year, but the recovery has lacked strong momentum and has not confirmed a trend reversal.

On the daily chart, SHIB trades within a clearly defined rectangular range, showing a temporary balance between buyers and sellers. Price has met resistance near the top of this range, while the middle zone—aligned with the 20-day moving average and middle Bollinger Band—provides support, keeping the market neutral.

Technical indicators support this cautious view. RSI sits around 58, reflecting modest bullish momentum but no clear dominance. Bollinger Bands remain moderately wide after the recent spike, signaling ongoing volatility rather than low activity.

Unless SHIB breaks decisively above the top of the consolidation range (0.0000095) with strong volume, the most likely scenario is continued sideways movement or a pullback toward the lower boundary of the range (0.0000080). A confirmed breakout would be necessary to shift the market structure and reopen the path for a broader recovery.