Asher Draycott Jan
24

What is Ishi (ISHI) crypto coin? The truth about the zero-market-cap meme token

If you’ve heard of Ishi (ISHI) as the "father of Shiba Inu," you’re not alone. But here’s the reality: Ishi isn’t a cryptocurrency you invest in - it’s a digital ghost. Launched on March 14, 2024, as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, Ishi claims to be the original ancestor of Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Floki. It has a smart contract address, a website, and even a story. But if you look closer, you’ll find almost nothing else.

It’s not a coin. It’s a zero.

Look up Ishi on Binance, CoinGecko, or CoinMarketCap, and you’ll see the same thing: market cap of $0. Circulating supply? 0. Trading volume? Less than $100 in 24 hours. Some platforms list the price as $0.00000011, but that’s meaningless when you can’t even buy a single token without paying more in gas fees than the token is worth.

Ethereum transaction fees average $1.50 to $3.00. To buy one Ishi token at $0.00000011, you’d need to spend over 13,000 times more in fees than the token’s value. That’s not investing. That’s throwing money into a black hole.

The story sounds cool - until you check the facts

The Ishi narrative is pure meme magic. It says: "Ishi is the one Shiba Inu from which all others were born." It’s like claiming your pet goldfish started the entire ocean. There’s no whitepaper. No team. No GitHub activity. No roadmap. No development updates since launch.

Compare that to Shiba Inu (SHIB), which has a decentralized exchange (ShibaSwap), a layer-2 network (Shibarium), and a growing ecosystem of NFTs and staking. Ishi? Nothing. Just a token contract with a funny backstory and zero utility.

Why do people even talk about it?

Because meme coins thrive on chaos. When Dogecoin jumped from $0.0001 to $0.08 in 2021, it wasn’t because of fundamentals - it was because of Elon Musk tweets and Reddit hype. Ishi rides that same wave, but without the crowd. There are no active Telegram groups. No trending Twitter threads. No Reddit communities. No influencers pushing it. It exists in the quiet corners of decentralized exchanges where nobody’s watching.

Some traders buy it as a joke. Others buy it hoping for a 10,000x return - the same fantasy that drove people to buy Dogecoin in 2020. But Dogecoin had volume. Ishi has silence.

A child holds a broken Ishi token while other dog coins run happily in a glowing meadow behind them.

The numbers don’t lie - and they’re terrifying

Here’s what the data says as of early 2026:

Price: $0.00000011 (11 ten-millionths of a dollar)
24-hour volume: $66-$95 across all exchanges
Market cap: $0
Circulating supply: 0
Price trend (7-day): Down 11%
RSI (14-day): 31.72 - oversold, but no buyers showing up
Volatility: 8.42% - wild swings, but no direction

CoinCodex predicts Ishi will drop another 24% by late 2026. 3Commas says it might hit $0.00000012 by 2028. That’s a 9% increase in three years. For context, $100 invested today would be worth $109 in 2028 - after paying hundreds in gas fees to trade it.

It’s not listed anywhere important

Ishi isn’t on Coinbase, Kraken, or even KuCoin. It’s only available on obscure decentralized exchanges like Uniswap or PancakeSwap - places where you need a crypto wallet, a seed phrase, and a willingness to lose money. If you’re not already deep into DeFi, you won’t even know how to find it.

Binance, the world’s largest exchange, lists Ishi as "Not listed" with a circulating supply of zero. That’s not an error. That’s a signal.

An ancient stone tablet with crypto code stands in ruins, a single flower blooming beside it as ghostly charts fade away.

Who’s behind it? No one knows

No one has claimed ownership. No team has been revealed. No social media accounts have been verified. The website is a single page with a dog logo and a claim that Ishi is "the ancestor of all Shiba Inu tokens." That’s it. No contact info. No support email. No Discord. No Twitter.

This isn’t a startup. This isn’t a project. This is a token that was deployed and then abandoned. The person who created it likely moved on to the next meme coin idea - and left Ishi as a digital tombstone.

Should you buy it?

No.

Not because it’s illegal. Not because it’s a scam (though it could be). But because there’s no reason to. You’re not buying a coin. You’re buying a lottery ticket for a game where the odds are 1 in 10 million - and you have to pay $2 just to enter.

If you’re curious and want to experiment with a meme coin, go for Dogecoin or Shiba Inu. They have volume, community, and real use cases - even if they’re still speculative. Ishi has none of that.

What’s the real lesson here?

There are over 17,000 meme coins in existence. 99.8% of them have a market cap under $1 million. Ishi isn’t even in that group - it’s in the 0.0001% that’s completely worthless.

The crypto market is full of noise. Most tokens are designed to be forgotten. Ishi is one of them. It’s not a hidden gem. It’s not a future star. It’s a footnote in the history of crypto memes - a reminder that not every dog-themed coin deserves a home.

If you see someone promoting Ishi as "the next big thing," walk away. They’re either joking - or trying to sell you something that doesn’t exist.

Asher Draycott

I'm a blockchain analyst and markets researcher who bridges crypto and equities. I advise startups and funds on token economics, exchange listings, and portfolio strategy, and I publish deep dives on coins, exchanges, and airdrop strategies. My goal is to translate complex on-chain signals into actionable insights for traders and long-term investors.