What exactly is Shibarium?
Created during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 by an anonymous developer (or group of developers) known only as "Ryoshi," Shiba Inu quickly gained popularity. It skyrocketed in price over a relatively short span.
Shiba Inu is built on top of the Ethereum protocol and is actively backed by hundreds of thousands of members of the "SHIBArmy" Community.
Only less than 13 months after the launch of ShibaSwap, the Shiba Inu Decentralized crypto exchange, the SHIB ecosystem already has thousands of Dapps.
This ranges from NFT marketplaces, liquidity pools, a governance token, and plans to launch a stablecoin and a version of a Shiba Inu metaverse.
However, one of the major projects to be implemented in the Shiba Inu ecosystem is Shibarium, a Layer-2 blockchain scaling solution for the Shiba Inu network.
Layer-2 solutions are secondary frameworks designed to help an already existing blockchain in terms of scalability. They help to process transactions off the main blockchain while maintaining the same security measures and decentralization of the main network.
It might be easier to think of Layer 2 solutions as smaller versions of a blockchain's mainnet that help to improve throughput and reduce gas costs (transaction fees).
Shibarium, in this case, is a layer-2 solution first proposed by Ryoshi, the creator of Shiba Inu.
According to Ryoshi, Shibarium will be a layer 2 blockchain that sits on top of Ethereum.
And once it launches, SHIB migrates to L2. It is worth noting that Shibarium is neither a blockchain of its own nor will it have its cryptocurrency.
However, Shiba Inu, after the launch of Shibaruim, will remain connected to Ethereum.
According to Ryoshi, the gas fees of the Shiba Inu network are expected to be low and almost zero. And according to Shytoshi Kusama, the Shiba Inu project lead, Shibarium is expected to offer lower fees for whatever Defi protocol, game, or service is built on it.
High gas fees are one of the most pressing issues faced by the Ethereum network. And given that Shiba Inu is built on the Ethereum network, it also suffered from hefty gas prices when the Shiboshi NFT collection was launched on the mainnet.
The Shibarium Layer 2 solution will also introduce some SHIB burning mechanisms to help burn more SHIB tokens and may (possibly) serve as a bridge to other Ethereum network ecosystems.
This may help to stabilize and even raise the price of Shiba Inu via the burning mechanism it aims to introduce.
Over the years, memecoins have been termed "scams" or pump and dump schemes, owing to how several holders have purchased them on initial offering at relatively cheap prices, only to sell them off on launch and crash the prices.
Shibarium will help to reduce SHIB's memecoin status through the burn mechanism it introduces.
The lower transaction fees may also help to bring more subscribers and users to the Shiba Inu ecosystem. Developers will also be able to implement new uses of the blockchain's technology, possibly ushering in the long-awaited SHIB metaverse as one of its scaling solutions.
There is no official release date announced for the Shibarium yet, but the layer 2 solution is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2022 (possibly this month).
Shibarium has also passed through a public testnet phase in Q3 of 2022, which the developers have deemed a success.
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