Santiment Raises Concern About Shiba Inu Top 10 Wallets Holding 61% of Supply, But There’s More to the Story

Blockchain analytics firm Santiment recently raised concerns about the Shiba Inu token distribution, but there is more to the story.

The firm highlighted that the top 10 largest wallets hold a staggering 61.3% of SHIB’s total supply. This level of concentration can increase price volatility since a few large holders can influence the market by buying or selling significant amounts. 

However, the situation is not as alarming as it first appears. A closer look into these wallets reveals an important detail that Santiment failed to mention.  

Santiment: High Concentration Signals Risk  

Notably, Santiment rightly pointed out that when a small number of wallets control a large portion of a crypto asset’s supply, market risks increase. If these wallets decide to sell, it could cause sharp price drops, hurting smaller investors. 

Conversely, the analytics platform noted that if they continue holding or accumulating, it could signal confidence in the project. Regardless, Santiment stressed that the higher the concentration, the more volatile the asset can become.  

Specifically, the firm compared SHIB’s distribution to other major crypto assets. For instance, Ethereum’s top 10 wallets hold 46.1% of its supply, while Chainlink and Toncoin only have 33.1% and 32.8%, respectively. 

According to Santiment, these lower concentrations are healthier because they prevent a single entity from having too much control over price movements. A more decentralized supply structure is preferable, as it builds investor trust and reduces the risk of manipulation.  

Who Really Owns These Shiba Inu Wallets?  

While the numbers suggest that a few whales dominate SHIB’s supply, the reality is different. Most of the top 10 wallets do not belong to individual investors but rather to exchanges and the burn wallet.  

The largest SHIB wallet holds 410.4 trillion tokens, accounting for 41% of the total supply. However, this is the Shiba Inu burn wallet, meaning these tokens are permanently removed from circulation. They will never come back into the market, making them irrelevant to price volatility concerns.  

The second-largest wallet holds 44.8 trillion SHIB, but this wallet belongs to South Korean crypto exchange Upbit. Since the exchange holds these assets on behalf of its users, this does not indicate control by a single entity.  

The pattern continues with the next wallets on the list. The third-largest wallet, containing 44.19 trillion SHIB, belongs to Binance. The fourth wallet, with 39.27 trillion SHIB, is a property of leading trading platform Robinhood. 

Crypto.com owns the fifth-largest wallet, which holds 33.29 trillion SHIB. The remaining five wallets are also tied to exchanges, including Binance, Robinhood, Bithumb, OKX, and BitGo.  

This means that instead of individual whales controlling these holdings, most of the SHIB in these top wallets is actually spread across millions of users who trade on these platforms.  

Interestingly, the first wallets that appear to belong to individual holders rank between 13th and 18th. Each of these wallets contains 5 trillion SHIB, and they acquired the tokens between March and November 2021. Their owner remains unknown, and none of these wallets have moved their funds since 2021.