Shiba Inu’s on-chain data shows an interesting dynamic among SHIB holders and their relationship with crypto exchanges. Recent stats from CryptoQuant show continued withdrawals from exchanges, in addition to a noticeable increase in fire activity in recent days, all of which are signs of tightening supply conditions.
This dwindling exchange supply reflects hundreds of billions of SHIB tokens that have been removed from exchanges in recent days in a trend that dates back a year.
Huge drop in SHIB on stock markets
According to data from on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, SHIB exchange reserves have noticeably decreased as whale wallets withdraw large amounts of tokens from trading platforms. On January 16, the entire Shiba Inu exchange reserves disappeared amounted to approximately SHIB 82.6 trillion. As of January 20, that figure has fallen to approximately SHIB 82.23 trillion.
This change means that approximately 370 billion SHIB have been removed from the exchanges in just a few days. Such movements are usually attributed to whale activity, as transfers of this size are rarely driven by retailers. When whales remove SHIB from exchanges, the tokens are often sent to cold storage or long-term wallets, reducing the amount of supply immediately available for sale.
SHIB exchange reserve. Source: CryptoQuant
These short-term outflows also fit into a much larger trend of outflows from crypto exchanges since January 2025. Data from CryptoQuant shows that SHIB exchange reserves stood at almost 140 trillion tokens at the beginning of January 2025. However, since then, SHIB whales have steadily reduced exchange balances, and this has pushed reserves to the current level of approximately 82.2 trillion SHIB. The consistency of this decline indicates deliberate accumulation or long-term positioning by large investors.
SHIB exchange reserve. Source: CryptoQuant
Whale activity correlates with increased SHIB burn rates
Fire activity within the Shiba Inu network has intensified, as whales withdraw SHIB from the exchanges. According to recent on-chain data, the SHIB burn rate has increased by more than 1,200% in the past 24 hours, with nearly 29 million SHIB permanently removed from circulation.
Although burns are not exclusively caused by whales, large keepers often play a role by transmitting large tokens to burn addresses or interact with the ecosystem mechanisms such as Shibarium that lead to burns. Data from the Burn Tracker website Shibburn shows that the majority of these burns were carried out with a single transfer of 28 million SHIB tokens sent to burn address CA.
SHIB burn rate. Source: Shibburn.com
According to data from CryptoQuant, more than 51.2 billion SHIB tokens were withdrawn from crypto exchanges in the last 24 hours alone. So far, Shiba Inu price action has not made a decisive move in response to these changes. At the time of writing, Shiba Inu is trading at $0.00000794, up 1% in the last 24 hours, but down 7.6% in the span of seven days.
SHIB Exchange Netflow. Source: CryptoQuant
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com