On Sunday (15 January 2023), the Shiba Inu ($SHIB) team explained the fundamental concepts of Shibarium — a layer two blockchain designed to address the shortcomings of the $SHIB token’s host chain Ethereum, namely low speed and high transaction cost — that is expected to have its beta launch soon.
Here is what Binance Academy says about Shiba Inu ($SHIB):
“Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a dog-themed meme cryptocurrency named after a Japanese dog breed. It was created in 2020 by an anonymous developer named Ryoshi, who designed SHIB to be an alternative to Dogecoin (DOGE) on the Ethereum blockchain.
“SHIB is an ERC-20 token with a decentralized exchange called ShibaSwap. The SHIB roadmap and ecosystem also features an NFT art incubator called Shiba Artist Incubator, 10,000 ‘Shiboshi’ NFTs, and an NFT game Shiboshi Game.
“Shiba Inu had an initial circulating supply of 1 quadrillion tokens. Ryoshi locked 50% of the token in Uniswap to create liquidity, and sent the other 50% to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s wallet. However, Vitalik decided to burn 90% of the coins and donate the remaining 10% to charity.“
In a blog post published on 15 January 2023, the Shibarium team explained that Shibarium’s mission is twofold: to offer a resource for the community to construct and expand the project on their own terms, and to invite new crypto users and educate them on the development process of a ground-up project.
To the developers, the question of when to begin the phased rollout is secondary to the importance they have on building Shibarium properly and presenting it responsibly. Also, they stress the importance of being patient, since some may mistake Shibarium for a tool to artificially boost the price of $SHIB and $BONE tokens.
Shibarium’s Layer 2 blockchain is built atop the Ethereum blockchain. It is intended to function in tandem alongside the preexisting blockchain network, enabling off-chain processing of transactions that are faster, cheaper, and more private while depending on the Ethereum blockchain’s security.
They went on to say:
“This blockchain (L2) runs on top of the Ethereum blockchain, which the SHIB ecosystem tokens (SHIB, LEASH & BONE) utilize. A Layer 2 blockchain provides the benefits of scalability, faster transaction times, lower fees, and an expanded development framework…
“So how do we remove the barrier to entry for the small transactions that occur in day-to-day living? In L2 blockchains like Shibarium, transactions occur ‘off-chain’, meaning transactions occur outside of the Layer 1 (Ethereum) blockchain, and are communicated back. Allowing the L2 blockchain to do the majority of the processing work alleviates bandwidth which results in lower costs (gas fees) and processing time for the end users…
“As previously announced, $BONE is the native token selected to pay for gas transactions and reward Validators and Delegators within the Shibarium protocol. Since its birth in July 2021, its main function has been linked to governance, but now also the much anticipated Shibarium launch… With a total supply of 250 million, of which 20 million have been reserved to reward Validators and Delegators in the coming years, and voted in by the Shiba community through our DAO process…
“In Shibarium, Validators are instrumental members of the network who contribute to operability security by locking up a certain number of $BONE tokens and operating Heimdall Validator and Bor block producer nodes…
“Heimdall Validator is an open-source validator software that can be used to participate in different blockchain networks. It is built using the Tendermint consensus engine, which allows it to process and validate transactions quickly and securely. It is designed to be easy to use, with a simple and intuitive user interface that allows users to monitor the status of their validator, delegate tokens, and more. Heimdall Validator allows to process and validate transactions quickly and securely, while analyzing and reinforcing integrity…
“Bor is the EVM-compatible layer responsible for block production. Bor offers EVM compatibility to leverage the developer functionality of Ethereum. The Bor layer is responsible for all peer-to-peer interactions on Shibarium. The committee of block producers is assembled and periodically shuffled from the list of validators.“
On 11 January 2023, the Shibarium team confirmed that Shibarium will require using $BONE to pay for transaction/gas fees and will burn $SHIB with every transaction (thereby making $SHIB more scarce, and potentially increasing its value):
In 2022, 83,347,071,504 SHIB tokens were burned:
