Layer-2 Shibarium Moves to Mainnet, Continues to Stir Controversy Due to Technical Issues

During its beta testing phase, Shiba Inu's Layer-2 solution, Shibarium, garnered adoption from over 21 million wallets.

Layer-2 Shibarium Advances to Mainnet, Continues to Stir Controversy

Anticipated Launch of Layer-2
After months of testing with millions of users, Shibarium, designed to develop gaming and metaverse applications, has officially transitioned to its mainnet phase.

As a crucial part of Shiba Inu's plan to evolve beyond its memecoin origins, Shibarium aims to enhance functionality for ecosystem tokens including BONE, TREAT, SHIB, and LEASH.

Similar to other Layer-2 solutions, Shibarium targets improving Ethereum's scalability, enhancing throughput, and reducing transaction fees. Developer Kaal Dhairya stated:

"The costs and scalability of Layer-2 depend on factors like the number of validators and transactions in the system. However, based on our initial testing, transaction costs on our Layer-2 are lower compared to Polygon."

Moreover, DoggyDAO, operated by token holders, will sponsor projects on Shibarium. To become a validator, users need to lock 10,000 BONE tokens. Additionally, 21 million BONE tokens will be allocated as rewards for validators and delegators within the ecosystem.

Ahead of the mainnet launch, Shiba Inu developers, under the pseudonym Shytoshi Kusama, revealed that over 100 new projects have shown interest in Shibarium.

Formation Suspicions
Shortly after the mainnet launch, Twitter account @shroom_daddy sparked public speculation with questions regarding Shibarium's operations, from RPC functionality to bridge operations. Comments below also drew attention from on-chain detective ZachXBT.

Due to bridge-related issues, an estimated $1.7 million worth of ETH is currently stuck on Shibarium and cannot be withdrawn.

Reflections on Shibarium
Shiba Inu teased Shibarium in Q3/2022, provided further details in January 2023, and finalized the beta launch amidst a market witnessing the emergence of over 50 new Layer-2 blockchains on Ethereum like Mantle, Base, Scroll, zkSync, Starknet, Polygon zkEVM, and Linea.

By mid-March this year, the project faced allegations of code duplication from another chain, even neglecting to change the chainID, prompting a new beta release post-controversy.

The price of SHIB has decreased by nearly 10% in the past 24 hours, and the mainnet deployment news seems unable to stem the decline of this memecoin.

Chart of the SHIB/USDT pair on Binance at 09:05 AM on August 17, 2023