The team behind the second-largest meme coin introduced an interesting challenge for its community aimed at increasing the token’s global popularity.

Some members said they plan to take advantage of the initiative soon, while others pointed to important reasons to avoid it.

SHIB in the Air

Earlier this week, the major international airline Emirates shook hands with Crypto.com, thus allowing UAE residents to book flights using the digital payment solution on the exchange’s website and application.

Shiba Inu’s official X account shared the update, reminding that SHIB is among the numerous tokens supported by the platform. It also encouraged its community to put the initiative to the test.

Many users applauded the news, and some asserted that they will use the meme coin as a payment method in the coming days. Others said they will never part with their coins, reminding the case of the programmer Laszlo Hanyecs, who bought pizza with Bitcoin (BTC) in 2010.

“Never using my SHIB for paying for anything, I don’t wanna end up being like that guy that bought pizza with his Bitcoin,” CryptoKing stated.

In the crypto world, Hanyecs’s story is considered both legendary and deeply instructive. 16 years ago, he spent 10,000 BTC to buy two pizzas, showing that the cryptocurrency can already be used as a payment method. At that time, the stash was worth around $40, yet at current rates it equals over $630 million.

Alongside promoting the idea of purchasing flight tickets with SHIB, the team has kicked off preparations for its sixth birthday, set for August 1. The community is already speculating whether the celebration will come with a major ecosystem update, but so far there are no signs that this will happen.

SHIB Price Outlook

Last weekend, the self-proclaimed Dogecoin killer posted a sudden and somewhat unexpected daily increase of 35%. Among the potential catalysts that have triggered the pump are a mysterious whale who has resumed accumulating after more than half a year of inactivity, as well as the notable resurgence of the burning mechanism.

In the following days, though, the bears stepped in and erased most of the gains, with SHIB currently trading at around $0.000004702, which is still a 12% jump on a weekly scale. According to Santiment, there were 52 whale transactions amid the rally, suggesting that large holders took profits. At the same time, retail investors joined the party too late and gave whales the necessary liquidity to reduce their exposure.

The analytics platform suggested that the optimal approach with meme coins like SHIB is to exit when retail FOMO surges and return once the crowd turns hostile and labels the token a scam.

Source: CryptoPotato