Shibarium. Source: Shibarium announcement
Shiba Inu announced Shibarium – Shiba Inu's Layer 2 Network. The announcement presented key concepts of Shibarium.
Shiba Inu is a decentralized cryptocurrency developed in August 2020 by "Ryoshi". It is not known whether it is an individual or a group of people. Shiba Inu runs on the Ethereum blockchain. The cryptocurrency is named after the Shiba Inu dog breed and is positioned as the "Dogecoin killer" (Dogecoin, by the way, uses a Shiba Inu dog as a logo).
In the crypto community, Shiba Inu, like Dogecoin, is referred to as a meme coin, which is often used in pump-and-dump schemes. But, the creators of Shiba Inu disagree with this. It is with this difference in approach that the announcement of the Shibarium – Shiba Inu Layer 2 network – begins.
“Patience is key, and some see Shibarium as a price pumping tool, but that is not the project's focus and never has been. Shibarium is being built to fulfill Ryoshi's vision and provide the community with a tool to build and grow the project on their own terms.”
<aside> 💡 Layer 2 is a protocol deployed on top of the main blockchain (Layer 1). Its essence is to increase the scalability of the main blockchain. Layer 2 is being created because the architecture of early blockchains (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) is not designed for a large number of users and transactions.
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What is Shibarium? This is a new powerful Layer 2 blockchain, which is one of the most important elements of the evolution of the Shiba Ecosystem. Shibarium will work on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Layer 2 is designed to scale the network and improve all aspects within it: convenience, security, speed, fee cost, privacy and everything else. In addition, it is planned that Shibarium will be used for the metaverse and gaming projects.
“This layer aims, as a protocol, to work on top of existing blockchain networks, allowing for faster, cheaper, and more private transactions to be processed off-chain, while still relying on the security of the underlying blockchain. This can help to reduce the load on the blockchain network and improve the user experience for metaverse and gaming applications.”
Let's discuss the main features of Shibarium. The developers plan to reduce the transaction fee by transferring most of the transaction processing work to Layer 2, bypassing Layer 1. This will help reduce the workload on the Layer 1 network and, as a result, reduce the gas fee and transaction processing time. In addition to increasing transaction speed and reducing the fee, Layer 2 will allow users to create their own decentralized applications (dApps) based on Shibarium.
Validators in Shibarium will be able to ensure the security and operability of the network by locking up a certain number of $BONE tokens. For their work, Validators receive a reward proportional to the number of tokens invested. That is, its staking.
“$BONE is the native token selected to pay for gas transactions and reward Validators and Delegators within the Shibarium protocol. <…> 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.”
If the user does not have the ability or want to run a full node, but they want to support the network, then they can become a “Delegator". He or she will be able to choose the validators group by voting, which will verify transactions and create new blocks. Such a consensus mechanism is called “Delegated proof of stake" (DPoS). Delegates, as well as Validators, own some amount of $BONE, which they can invest in an already existing validator node without launching their own. At the same time, Delegators profit from staking.
“Delegators can choose to vote for a validator of their choice and delegate their voting power to that validator. The validator, in turn, uses the combined voting power of all delegators to help secure the network and validate transactions. <…> They [Delegators] play an important role in the system by selecting which validator nodes will be responsible for validating transactions. Delegators choose to lend their tokens to Validator nodes, and as a result, they are entitled to a portion of the rewards earned by those Validators.”
The $BONE test token will be used to test Shibarium. The test will be conducted in a private format using a faucet – website or app that dispenses small amounts of a specific test token. Test tokens will not be real assets. They are only needed to test the network. Currently, the official portal for obtaining test tokens is closed, but Shiba Inu will announce when it opens.
In addition to all of the above innovations, $SHIB Burn Mechanics to Shibarium have also been announced. The developers hope that the mechanics will be able to have a significant impact on the circulating amount of the $SHIB supply.
“Keeping the promise and often requested by the Shiba community, we confirm that all transactions on the network will have an implicit burn amount for $SHIB token. This will operate within the base gas fee of these transactions being utilized to burn $SHIB through our renewed Burn Portal. This will occur every time a transaction is made on the network.”*
Furthermore, ShibaSwap will be integrated into Shibarium “for easier access to tools and functions, and to allow both users and Validators/Delegators to access all staking and liquidity pools efficiently.”
The developers have not mentioned the launch date for Shibarium.
“We ask the community to please understand, that this phased release is not a matter of wen but a matter of developing Shibarium correctly, and introducing it responsibly. Avoid asking wen, because the answer will always be a 'soon'. Yet with that being said we are approaching the finishing touches for Shibarium's Beta and its imminent launch.”