The beginning of July brought local relief to the meme coin market after a failed June, during which the sector lost around 33% of its capitalization. Against the backdrop of broader expectations for a traditional summer rebound, Shiba Inu ($SHIB) showed a price recovery.
However, fresh on-chain data from the analytics platform CryptoQuant shows that large players prefer not to take risks and are locking in quick profits at the first opportunity.
The reversal began in late June, when the $SHIB price dropped to a low near $0.00000415. Large players immediately used this drawdown for aggressive accumulation: from June 25 to June 29, they massively withdrew coins to cold wallets.
The artificial supply shortage worked like a spring — by on July 2, the coin's price bounced upward, reaching the $0.00000430–$0.00000431 area.
Shiba Inu ($SHIB) exchange netflow June 25 - July 2 2026, Source: CryptoQuant
However, the reaction of large holders to the first green candles turned out to be pragmatic, as fresh metrics recorded a lightning-fast reverse inflow of coins to trading platforms. Over the past 24 hours, an impressive 254.4 billion tokens were sent to exchanges, while outflows were almost 50 billion lower.
As a result, dollar reserves on exchanges jumped by 2.67% at once, reaching $375.9 million. This statistic directly proves that whales do not believe in long-term growth and are using any local rise to quickly lock in profits, once again loading the market with selling pressure.
Can retail buying power overcome exchange pressure for $SHIB？
Given the clash of interests between sellers and buyers opening new positions, on-chain metrics point to two possible scenarios:
- Bull case: Retail buyers break through the current resistance at $0.00000431 and continue the upward move that began on July 1.
- Bear case: Coin inflows to exchanges from sellers continue to grow, neutralizing the current rebound and sending the price back toward the June support at $0.00000415.
Whether the Shiba Inu coin can build on this minor price success now depends entirely on the resilience of retail investors. So far, small players are coping with the pressure, and the active addresses index has risen by 0.61%, which means that, caught up in July optimism, retail is absorbing whale orders and preventing the price from sinking.
The price has frozen in a narrow range, while the daily net flow of coins to exchanges has almost zeroed out. While retail investors are trying to buy into a full reversal, large participants no longer believe in “moonshots” and opt for a bird in the hand by taking profits on every rebound.