What is Shibarium?

Shibarium is the new project of the Shiba community that seeks to build a complete Layer2 to deploy its decentralized applications and boost the utility and scope of the tokens of this project within the blockchain space.

Une of the projects that has transformed the most within the crypto ecosystem is undoubtedly Shiba Inu, a project that started as a meme-coin and is now working on a new Layer2 on which to build its ecosystem: shibarium.

In fact, Shiba Inu In a very short time, it has gone from being a joke to becoming one of the projects with one of the most complete roadmaps in the crypto ecosystem. A reality that is reinforced with the arrival of Shibarium, which seeks to completely transform the ecosystem by offering a powerful layer 2 blockchain and a complete offer to innovate and transform its entire ecosystem. DeFi.

An interesting proposal for Shiba Inu

Shibarium is a Layer2 that will run on the Ethereum blockchain and that will make use of the Shiba ecosystem tokens: SHIB, LEASH and BONE.

Thus, the project aims to offer a cheap and fast platform to carry out your operationsAt the same time, the Shiba ecosystem opens up a creative space to generate decentralized applications that revolve around the aforementioned tokens. In this way, it seeks to boost their utility, giving the community the tools they want for their use and enjoyment through these tokens.

At the same time, Shibarium wants to become an epicenter of community Web3 development. This includes the generation of DApps and protocols to create applications ranging from social networks, DAOgames NFTs, DeFi, metaverses and more, all based on the operation of Layer 2 that will have much lower transaction fees.

In this way, Web3 becomes a vital development hub for Shiba, which is very strongly committed to the development of this type of application using the solutions that will be designed and deployed within Shibarium.

To achieve this, Shibarium needs to be a Layer2 with enormous ease to develop applications, have a good level of security, as well as offer speed and scalability to take all your proposals to the next level.

Shibarium Purpose and Objective: Promote the development of the Shiba ecosystem

Shibarium aims to solve a problem that has always existed in Ethereum: high commissions and low scalability.

In 2021, during the NFT and DeFi boom, Ethereum became for a long time the one of the most expensive blockchain networks to use. The problem was of such magnitude that its creator, Vitalik Buterin, proposed a change in the system for calculating Gas commissions and costs within the network.

Although Buterin's proposal was applied, the reality is that its impact was minimal within Ethereum, keeping the average cost of operations well above the average for other cryptocurrencies. This is without counting the scalability problems that afflicted Ethereum, and that projects like Polygon (a Layer2) helped a lot to overcome.

The main ones affected by these problems are of course Ethereum users, especially those who want to use DeFi applications and who have little economic power to face the high commissions. Two factors that represent a huge barrier to entry into the DeFi ecosystem and that Shibarium intends to improve.

With this problem in mind, Shiba developers (made up of community members) decided it was time to scale Shiba Inu solutions to a new level: build your own Layer2, Shibarium. In this way they are solved:

1. Ethereum fees, as everything related to Shiba would take place on Layer2, leaving only a cryptographically protected summary of these operations sitting on Ethereum (which would be Layer1).
2. Allow Shibarium users to interoperate with Ethereum and with the rest of the blockchains (Layer1 and Layer2) compatible with it.
3. Create new incentives for the community to keep their SHIB, BONE and LEASH tokens, since they will have a leading role within Shibarium.
4. Generate new platforms that help the development of Shiba, beyond being a meme project and climbing to the first places in the ecosystem.

So basically, Shibarium provides robust functionality for the community to build their vision on the blockchain and that will allow them to expand much further in the future.

Operation of the Shibarium network

Shibarium is designed as a Layer2 of the type Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) in which we have two important actors:

Validators within the network

The validators within a blockchain network are the nodes in charge of verify and validate transactions in order to maintain the integrity of the network and records of the blockchain. These nodes are usually run by people and entities interested in maintaining the proper functioning of the network.

In Shibarium this role is repeated, since validators are instrumental members of the network that contribute to the security of the network. To do this, the operators of these validator nodes must stake a certain number of $BONE tokens in order to have the ability to be enabled as validation nodes within the network. At the same time, these validators must run two essential software for this task: the Heimdall and Bor node software.

The first of them is a open source validator software which can be used to participate in different blockchain networks. It is built around the Tendermint consensus protocol, the same protocol used by networks like Cosmos.

Thanks to this, Shibarium is capable of processing and validating transactions quickly and securely, with a TPS that can easily reach a thousand transactions (1000 TPS). A relevant point is that the number of validators is limited to 100 validators and they must bet a minimum of 10.000 BONE to be enabled.

For its part, Bor is the layer that connects Shibarium with the desired abilities of the Ethereum Virtual Machine.Therefore, Bor is a compatibility layer with the EVM to take advantage of the enormous functionality that has been built around it and Ethereum's Solidity programming language.

As in the rest of the DPoS nodes, the operators of these will earn rewards proportional to their participation. The rewards are divided among all participants based on the number of tokens they have staked. The user's rewards balance is recorded in a contract, which is used to determine the rewards that can be claimed. In addition, validators also risk losing part or all of their stake if they engage in malicious activities.

Delegators in Shibarium

Delegators are the second relevant actor within Shibarium. Making use of the DPoS consensus mechanism, delegators can choose to vote to a validator of their choice and delegate their voting power to that validator. The validator, in turn, uses the combined voting power of all delegates to help secure the network and validate transactions.

Delegators are people who own $BONE and decide to support the network by staking their tokens on validator nodes, rather than running one themselves. They play an important role in the system by selecting the validator nodes that will be in charge of validating the 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.

On the other hand, this also implies that they are exposed to the same risks as validators. For example, if a validator breaches the protocol, delegators may lose a portion of their tokens relative to the amount they had delegated to that validator.

The process to become a Shibarium delegator is relatively simple, the only requirement is to stake your tokens to a validator of your choice. There is no fixed limit to the number of delegates in the network. However, the number of delegates is limited by the amount of participation available on the network, as each delegate must possess a certain amount of the network's native token in order to participate in the validation process.

Economic ratio of tokens in Shibarium

The SHIB, BONE and LEASH tokens are responsible for making the tokenomic framework a reality. Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) will be the native currency of the Shibarium. Shiba's creator, Ryoshi, chose this coin in the belief that it would give everyone a fair start, unlike SHIB, which already has multiple whales.

However, several ShibaSwap DEX users had already minted BONE before the community decided to end its minting. There are currently 230.000.000 BONE in circulation, which means there are likely several whales as well. When Shibarium is active, network validators will receive BONE for securing and validating transactions in the L2 network.

In addition, each Shibarium transaction will consume SHIB, which means that SHIB's massively inflated outstanding supply (currently around 550 billion) is expected to drop dramatically after the launch of the Tier 2 product. This could help make SHIB a better investment going forward.

Another important point for SHIB is that Shibarium will have a burning system for this token. This is crucial, especially if you want to increase the SHIB value. With a current supply of more than 500 billion tokens. This has been one of the factors that have prevented its value from increasing. Although there have been SHIB burns, mostly voluntary (such as the one carried out by Vitalik Buterin), the burning system seeks to significantly reduce this supply. Finally, LEASH will continue to maintain its role as a rebase token for the ecosystem within Shibarium.

Commissioning of Shibarium

Shibarium is a project still under construction, however the Shiba development team has made it clear that the project is progressing rapidly and the launch of the testnet is getting closer. The launch, according to the data provided by the team in its official documentation, will be announced on the official website where all the necessary information to access the testnet can be found, as well as all the necessary material to deploy the nodes for the operation of this testnet.

The official announcement of the community, made in January 2023, does not provide further information, but given the evolution of the project in the last two years, it is likely that we will soon see the start-up of the network and we will be able to verify first-hand everything that Shibarium will bring to the Shiba ecosystem.