Excuse my ignorance but is Dogecoin the same animal as Shiba Inu crypto? Shiba is a breed of Japanese dog ("inu") but frankly, I'm more than a bit confused (despite Eoin's clear and enlightening description of the phenomenon) by the entire cryptocurrency story. To me it smells of...tulips.

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for this question. Shiba Inu coin is a copycat coin for Dogecoin. They are not related projects. There are valid comparisons between cryptocurrencies and the tulip mania but perhaps not in the way people think.

Since tulips only flower once a year, but people wished to trade them on a year-round basis, promissory notes were invented. That was the origin of the futures market in Europe. It seems clear that the massive investment in distributed finance will yield some new useful financial innovation that is completely independent from the mania in the price of related assets. Also see comment of the day on February 17th 2021 

Thanks to a subscriber for this article from accountancy firm Buzzacott which may be of interest.