With a market cap of $8.45 billion, Shiba Inu (SHIB) now ranks 16 among the largest cryptocurrencies by CoinMarketCap, surpassing Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which follows closely behind with a market value of $8.24 billion. It’s a small difference, and yet it's another moment where a meme coin has beaten out a more traditional project.

Despite its price remaining at just above $0.000014, there is a large and active SHIB holder base of over 1.5 million, and the total circulating supply is approaching 589 trillion tokens. Its daily trading volume is around $178 million.

By contrast, with just under 20 million coins in circulation, Bitcoin Cash trades at over $415 and sees higher daily trading activity at about $243 million.

Nonetheless, SHIB outperformed and its rise echoes a bigger trend as the market currently favors more reactive, attention-grabbing assets, with meme coins right at the center.

Even though Bitcoin Cash offers exposure to Bitcoin’s original vision and plays a role in the payment space, its pace hasn’t been enough to match the current attention surrounding tokens like SHIB.

It's unlikely that this latest flip will change long-term outlooks, but it shows where the market’s focus is. Especially during periods of low conviction or sideways movement, coins that move quickly and engage large communities are likely to be in the spotlight. Shiba Inu keeps benefiting from that trend.