What is Shibarium? Shiba Inu’s Layer 2 Network Explained

What is Shibarium?

Shibarium is a layer 2 blockchain network that is being developed on Ethereum for improving the Shiba Inu meme coin. It plays a crucial role in transforming the Shiba Inu into a complete ecosystem of dapps, blockchain games, and a metaverse. 

One of the anonymous creators of Shiba Inu, Ryoshi initially proposed this concept in 2021. After almost 2 years, when the beta version of Shibarium called PuppyNet went live on Ethereum in March, it piqued the interest in Shiba Inu community and the network activity has been increasing since then. The Shibarium project provides scalable solutions along with improving the security of DeFi.

The layer 2 network serves various aspects of the blockchain such as metaverse, DeFi, GameFi, and broader Web3 innovations. It plans to do so by facilitating faster, cheaper, and more private off-chain transactions. This way, it intends to improve the scalability while having the security of the underlying blockchain. 

How Does Shibarium Work?

Shibarium layer 2 solution processes data and transactions off-chain without compromising privacy and security. It takes transactions off-chain, processes them, and communicates them back to the Ethereum network. As a result, it reduces the load of processing transactions for Ethereum. This, in turn, improves the scalability and user experience. 

Ethereum blockchain is known for its high transaction fees, also known as gas fees. The congested network and high gas fees gave birth to various layer 2 scalable solutions like Optimistic and ZK-rollups. Though the network became a Proof-of-Stake blockchain after The Merge, Ethereum still needs L2 solutions to handle the increasing number of projects. 

This layer2 solution not only improves the speed and lowers the fees but also provides an infrastructure to develop scalable Dapps. Various Dapps like metaverse apps, blockchain games, and other Web3 projects need these solutions for better user experience and mass adoption. 

The Native Shibarium Coin: BONE

BONE is the native token that takes care of all the payment activities on Shibarium layer2 network. The network uses BONE to pay gas fees and to reward the validators and delegators in exchange for verifying transactions.

The BONE token was initially introduced in July 2021 and acted as a governance token for the Shiba Inu community. Having a total supply of 250 million, the project allocated 20 million BONE tokens for rewarding validators and delegators.

Is Shibarium Good For Shiba Inu?

The Shibarium network holds the potential to create a robust Shiba Inu ecosystem comprising many projects. The scalable infrastructure of this layer 2 network introduces new features and benefits. Let us look at the 6 ways the Shiba Inu Ecosystem will benefit from this layer 2 network.

• Fast Transactions: The layer 2 solution promises to improve the transaction speeds and increase the throughput of the network. It plans to do so by processing the transactions off-chain and submitting them back to the main network. As per the project’s whitepaper, they will disclose the transactions per second (TPS) once they test the network’s performance.
• Low Transaction Fees: High gas fees are the major hindrance to the usage and adoption of decentralized applications on Ethereum. The Shib layer 2 solution also works on lowering the transaction fees compared to the current gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet. The project announces the potential gas fees once they analyze the Testnet.
• Shiba Inu Burn Mechanism: Along with improving the scalability, Shibarium also focuses on reducing Shiba Inu’s supply with its Burn Mechanism. Notably, this burn mechanism differs from the existing Shiba Inu Burn Portal. The new Burn Mechanism includes the burning of SHIB tokens every time a transaction takes place on the network. The project reveals more details of the new Burn Mechanism in its future announcements.
• Better Token Utility: So far, the SHIB and its related tokens have limited usage as the tokens are more popular for monitoring market performance. But, developments like Shib Metaverse and ShibSwap will bring new token utilities into the system. Moreover, the network uses native BONE tokens to pay its validators.
• Dapp Development: The Shibarium network provides a robust, secure, and scalable infrastructure for developers. They can create dapps in the Shiba Inu ecosystem with features like high transaction speeds and low fees. This will encourage developers to create dapps and bring their visionary projects to life.

Latest Updates About Shibarium

Congratulation to everyone on #Shibarium !
400 M transactions! pic.twitter.com/zVYJmgX98A

— 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐄 | SHIB.IO 🧜🏼‍♀️ (@LucieSHIB) March 7, 2024

The SHIB transactions on Shibarium layer 2 have surpassed 400 million, as of March 2024. The anticipation of upcoming bull market, the return of meme coin season, combined with the increased usage of Shibarium resulted in a significant price surge of SHIB tokens. As the adoption of Shibarium increases, the Shiba Inu ecosystem improves further in the future.