Shibarium, the Layer-2 blockchain of the Shiba Inu ecosystem, has recommenced its block production after a brief suspension that lasted almost a day.
The mainnet for Shibarium, which is a fork of Polygon, went live on 16 August 2023:
According to the Shibarium block explorer BlockScout, the Shibarium network has now resumed block production.
Yesterday, Shytoshi Kusama, Shiba Inu’s lead developer, reached out to the ShibArmy to address circulating rumors and concerns about Shibarium. In his blog post, Kusama firmly stated that there’s no issue with the bridge and that any circulating screenshots suggesting such problems are misleading. He reassured the community, emphasizing that their funds remain secure.
Kusama shed light on the real challenge Shibarium encountered: an unexpected surge in traffic immediately after its public launch announcement. He expressed astonishment at the ShibArmy’s impact, recalling instances where their enthusiasm had previously overwhelmed major exchanges and websites. This time, the decentralized team felt the full brunt of the ShibArmy’s power.
Apparently, the technical hiccups weren’t due to inherent flaws in Shibarium. Instead, they arose from the simultaneous massive influx of users and transactions. Kusama shared that the team has been working around the clock to scale the system to handle this unexpected surge. To illustrate the sheer volume of traffic, he cited data from ALCHEMY, a monitoring service they employed. Under their enterprise agreement with Alchemy, Shibarium is allocated 400 million compute units monthly. Astonishingly, they consumed over 160 million of these units in just half an hour at launch. If this trend continued, they’d be looking at daily compute units in the billions, rivaling the activity of the busiest L2 Blockchains.
Highlighting the community’s enthusiasm, Kusama noted that within about 15 minutes of Shibarium’s launch, the platform received deposits of 1000 Eth and 600,000 Bone.
Earlier today, Kaal Dhairya, a developer for Shiba Inu, published a blog post in which he addressed the community to provide clarity on the challenges faced during the launch of Shibarium. In his blog post, he detailed the unexpected surge in traffic and the steps being taken to address the issues.
Dhairya began by acknowledging the overwhelming popularity of Shibarium, which led to traffic levels that surpassed even their most optimistic expectations. He assured the community that they would be kept informed throughout the scaling process, with the current post being the first of such updates.
He shared that Shibarium experienced millions of “compute units” of traffic in a very short span. Upon a detailed investigation, the team discovered an enormous number of contract creations and standard transactions occurring within a single block. This unprecedented activity prompted Shibarium’s system to enter a fail-safe mode. This action was taken to ensure the security of funds, which Dhairya confirmed remain safe.
In response to the challenges, Dhairya mentioned that they’ve sought assistance from influential allies (to be named later with their consent) to work alongside the Shibarium developers and the Unification team. These teams have been working relentlessly to scale the blockchain and have identified several potential solutions. The community will be kept informed as these plans are put into action.
Addressing the spread of misinformation, Dhairya expressed his disappointment over a fake screenshot that caused significant harm to their project. He expressed surprise at how many news outlets took this misleading post as a credible source. Dhairya emphasized the importance of relying only on official channels for accurate information, cautioning that even major media outlets can sometimes be misled by false social media posts. He also mentioned that efforts are underway to identify the individuals responsible for this misinformation, emphasizing that such malicious attacks on their system will not be tolerated.
To further assure the community, Dhairya reiterated that the funds currently “paused” in the bridge are secure. As a testament to their commitment, they’ve chosen to insure the entire amount, totaling $2 million, to address any potential issues once Shibarium is back online.
Dhairya concluded by promising another update the following day to keep the ShibArmy informed about the progress of Shibarium’s scaling efforts.
According to an article by Cointelegraph, in the wake of the FUD, many large holders and traders decided to sell their SHIB, BONE, and LEASH tokens, leading to a notable reduction in their primary holdings. Yet, prices are showing signs of recovery after Shibarium’s reactivation, even amidst a more extensive cryptocurrency market downturn.
At the time of writing, SHIB, BONE, and LEASH are trading around $0.00000848, $1.22, and $448.57 respectively.
