How powerful is Shanks in One Piece?

Shank is one of the few prominent characters beside Kaido, Gol D. Roger and Monkey D. Dragon whose abilities and powers are not fully revealed yet.

I think we can all agree that we haven’t seen enough of Shanks’ abilities. But, let’s see some examples of him demonstrating his powers:

When we first saw him with Luffy (in the first episode) and we see little of his fighting skills, mostly just his spirit, which he demonstrates against Higuma and then to the Sea King where, he demonstrates his Haki.

Then after 10 years, with only one arm left, he is been visited by Mihawk on an island. We all know Mihawk is the best swordsman in the One Piece world. After we learn that they’ve had regular matches with one another, which means in terms of powers he has to be very strong to be a match for Mihawk. Also then he demonstrates that he can take a blow from the Yonko. And when he entered the Whitebeard’s ship his haki not only knocked out a lot of Whitebeard’s crew, but also damaged the ship.

Also this caused Whitebeard‘s scar to ache and have Marco and Jozu commend about his spirit.

Also before the Summmit War Arc he was fighting another Yonko Kaido, which according to Law, is “the strongest creature in the world”.

After that events, we saw him in Summit War Arc where he stopped Akainu with Armament haki.

And then he asked Blackbeard, which until then didn’t fear anyone to fight and he said that it’s not time yet for them to fight. Blackbeard understood on that moment he isn’t ready to fight Shanks, which it means a lot, since Shanks stopped the war.

Also It’s not just Shanks that’s strong, his crew members are strong too, Ben Beckman was able to make Kizaru stop for a moment during the Summit War Arc.

Challenged everyone after the war: the three Admirals, the Fleet Admiral, overshadowed old school player Garp, Blackbeard (who had the strongest Logia and strongest Paramecia), but yet no one stepped forward!

*Theory by Nilesh Jha