Despite a pullback from earlier session highs in the broader cryptocurrency market on Thursday, dog-inspired meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB), which lives as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, is pushing higher. The crypto token, which is the second most popular meme coin after Dogecoin, was last trading in the region of 3.0% higher on the day, and is up around 9% since bouncing from its 21-Day Moving Average on Wednesday ahead of the not-as-hawkish-as-feared Fed meeting.

Some analysts are saying that recent news that Canadian crypto payment gateway FCF Pay has added the main Shiba Inu ecosystem tokens (SHIB, LEASH and BONE) to its prepaid Visa and Mastercard cards is giving Shiba Inu a boost. FCF Pay cardholders will now be able to preload their cards with up to $5000 worth of SHIB, LEASH and BONE, as well as other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and major stablecoins.

SHIB Primed to Explode?

SHIB/USD was last changing hands around $0.0000125, up an impressive more than 50% since the start of 2023. And the gains could be about to accelerate. Shiba Inu is currently testing a downtrend linking the August and October 2022 highs. Given how well SHIB/USD has been supported during pullbacks to its 200DMA and 21DMA in recent weeks, buying pressure appears to be building, suggesting a break above the key long-term downtrend and January’s highs in the $0.000013 area is looking more likely.

That would open the door to a rapid run towards the October high in the $0.0000152 area, and then potentially on towards the August highs just below $0.000018. Technical and broad crypto tailwinds aren’t the only potential sources of support for the meme cryptocurrency.

Upcoming Shiba Inu Projects to Provide Long-term Tailwinds

Shiba Inu developers are working on a number of cool projects that look set to add significant utility to the SHIB token this year. These include Shiba Inu’s own Ethereum scaling solution blockchain called the Shibarium – this blockchain, which will be built as a layer-2 extension of the Ethereum blockchain, will use SHIB as its native token and will hopefully result in 1) lower gas fees and 2) faster growth of the Shiba Inu web3 ecosystem.

Developers are also working on lots of other cool projects like a Shiba Inu metaverse. Given the cryptocurrency’s massive and highly supportive community and impressive development efforts, investors are likely to be increasingly drawn to SHIB in 2023, viewing it as more than just a way to make a quick buck, and viewing it instead as an investment in a long-term, valuable crypto project.