The development team intends to give Shiba Inu real-world utility rather than the memecoin moniker that helped it become what it is today.
Shiba Inu’s community is abuzz with anticipation after news that Shiberium, the network’s layer-2 blockchain, is nearing completion. The $XFUND Mainnet upgrade is the greatest indicator that the Shibarium testnet would be introduced in June, according to several reports.
Shiba Inu’s lead developer, Shytoshi Kusama, has cryptically hinted regarding the development. His most recent clue was a GIF he had captioned as “laughter in Shibarium,” which a community saw as a good sign. According to Unification’s statement earlier this year, Shibarium’s private testnet has progressed to the second stage of development.
Shibarium has sparked a lot of interest, and it’s not hard to see why. Transactions would be “approved in seconds for pennies,” according to a team blog post, fueling the fires of hope for lower transaction fees. “Shibarium will offer low fees for every service, game or whatever that builds on it,” Kusama said on Shiba Discord.
The ecosystem also stands to benefit from Shibarium serving as a link between different blockchains and enabling developers to build on the platform through the upcoming Shibarium Hackathon. Analysts are already predicting that Shibarium will be the impetus for a big price surge for SHIB, similar to the highs reached in 2021.
With its venture into the metaverse, Shiba Inu has continued to expand its utility. According to a blog post from the team, land event sale rewards may be available to the holder starting July 22. Users can reap rewards if they have locked LEASH and bid “at least once on a land plot, or minted land(s) per wallet,” according to the post. The reward distribution was a one-time event, according to the team.
The inexplicable absence of Ryoshi, Shiba Inu’s mysterious founder, has been a source of concern for investors amid all the buzz surrounding the network. As speculation about the project’s future grew, Ryoshi deactivated his social media accounts and wiped all of his digital footprints overnight.
While the community struggled to make sense of the founder’s disappearance, a concerning trend emerged, raising even more concerns. The burn rate of SHIB reduced by 64.2% over the last day, with only 54.6 million SHIB tokens burned. Experts believe that the impact will be a delay in the bullishness that it may have on the entire coin.
Kusama, the lead developer, downplayed the departure, saying the team would “actualize Ryoshi’s vision and plan for this grand experiment.”