Shiba Inu is one of the worst performing cryptocurrencies within the top-20 by market cap within the last week. SHIB has lost 3.7% of its value in the last 24 hours, while it is down as much as 12% on a weekly basis.

One reason for this, besides the recent negative market sentiment, seems to be the disappointment that the layer-2 technology Shibarium will not be launched this Valentine’s Day, February 14, as was long speculated.

Shiba Inu Whale Buys The Dip

However, one of the biggest Ethereum investors has taken advantage of the drop in price to buy the dip. As reported by WhaleStats, an anonymous Ethereum whale has bought a whopping 223.07 billion Shiba Inu, the equivalent of around $2.75 million.

Remarkably, the whale is the 329th largest ETH holder, and his purchase has placed Shiba Inu as the eighth most purchased token among the top 1,000 ETH whales in the last 24 hours. The data provider tags the major investor as “BlueWhale0073.”

ETH whale “BlueWhale0073” just bought 223,077,962,531 $shib ($2,755,012 USD).

Ranked #329 on WhaleStats: https://t.co/RBupemZyZX

Transaction: https://t.co/ciUrRtoE5K#SHIB #ShibArmy

— WhaleStats (tracking crypto whales) (@WhaleStats) February 13, 2023

As of early February, the whale owned more than $45 million worth of cryptocurrencies, though he has since then started distributing his tokens to other addresses, just as he did with SHIB shortly after the purchase.

Anyway, the Shiba Inu whale may have used the dip to buy SHIB relatively low, considering the still-hyped soon to come launch of Shibarium.

Shibarium Launch Before May?

As reported by Bitcoinist, Shytoshi Kusama, the lead developer of Shiba Inu, had sparked a rumor that Shibarium might launch on Valentine’s Day. Recently, however, he had dispelled this rumor and stated that he could not give a fixed launch date at this point.

However, in a message on Telegram, Kusama hinted that the launch could happen before May this year. This statement came after some community members continued to speculate on Valentine’s Day as the launch date.

Kusama responded to the speculation with a wink, stating, “MAY be….just kidding, it’ll be out before May, lol.”

May be May be We’ll see when the Devs alignIt’s not one – It’s three + unification #Shibarium when it’s ready pic.twitter.com/m8CxTuPRzH

— 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐞 (@LucieSHIB) February 13, 2023

With this, Shibarium still doesn’t have a firm release date, which has put a damper on the SHIB community expectations given the recent buzz, which is also reflected in the price of SHIB.

At the moment, the hype is still so big that it can be a massive driver for the SHIB price. But the longer the hype drags on, the greater the chance that the launch becomes a “buy the rumor, sell the news” event.

This could mean that the SHIB price falls sharply on the day of the launch because speculators want to realize their SHIB profits at a local high.

At press time, the SHIB price stood at $0.00001229, finding support at the 200 EMA in the 4-hour chart (at $0.00001201). On the upside, the resistance at $0.00001297 is of key importance.