The performances of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu this cycle have been disappointing for investors, who have waited years for the possibility of new all-time highs. Nevertheless, these two remain the largest meme coins by market cap and are often the first stop for investors looking to get into the meme market. Using predictions from the CoinCodex machine learning algorithm, this report will focus on the two leading meme coins and which one could bring the most returns in 2026.

Since the year 2026 began, both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have struggled as their prices failed to see any notable recovery. But even this has not deterred expectations that the meme coins will recover. According to the CoinCodex website, both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu will see gains in the double-digits this year, but one will outperform the other.

Looking at the prediction for Shiba Inu, it shows that the highest point that the meme coin might reach this year lies at $0.000009277. Despite this being a 56.90% increase from the current levels, it is still more than 80% below its all-time high price of $0.00008.

With this being the highest the meme coin is expected to go, investing in Shiba Inu could only end up bringing a 50% return on investment at best when buying at these levels. While this is a reasonable return, it pales in comparison to where the algorithm predicts Dogecoin could be in the same time period.

Just like Shiba Inu, the Dogecoin recovery is expected to start out slow. However, the algorithm predicts that the rally will pick up toward the end of the year. In contrast to Shiba Inu’s highest returns being only 56.90%, the algorithm predicts that the Dogecoin price would rise by 124.71% in the third quarter of the year.

This means that investing in Dogecoin could end up doubling investments when buying at current levels. Not only this, the algorithm predicts that the rest of the year will be green for not only Dogecoin, but for Shiba Inu as well, suggesting that 2026 could be the year of recovery for the crypto assets.

However, for now, both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu continue to struggle with no sign of a recovery. This is largely due to the poor performance of Bitcoin, which seems set to crash below $60,000, plunging the crypto market into another bear cycle.

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