On August 16th, Shiba Inu launched the Shibarium mainnet, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum. This new consensus mechanism, known as proof-of-participation (PoP), works by selecting validators in proportion to their holdings of the associated cryptocurrency, thus avoiding computational costs of proof-of-work schemes. It is designed to interact with the primary Ethereum layer-1 blockchain, providing a more efficient and cost-effective transaction platform.
Shiba Inu (SHIB) gained popularity during the bull market of 2020–2021, briefly overtaking Dogecoin (DOGE) as the OG meme cryptocurrency. Despite its price decline during the bear market, the Shiba Inu community still built a decentralized ecosystem around the cryptocurrency, which included a decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap, a native token, BONE, a metaverse and a Web3 game.
Prior to the mainnet launch, Shiba Inu’s lead developer, Shytoshi Kusama, shared a screenshot on X (formerly known as Twitter) which showed that over one hundred companies were already using Shibarium. In an exclusive conversation with Cointelegraph, Kusama said that the L2 had gained a lot of traction from new projects. He stated that Shibarium honors “the principles of decentralization, interoperability and user-centric design for both blockchain and the technology sector at large.”
Kusama further explained that the validator and delegator aspects of the new L2 will keep Shibarium decentralized, but that the true innovation lies in the framework, governance and charter which will help govern the ecosystem’s technology, community, protective and innovative aspects. Shibarium will make use of the Heimdall validator and Bor block production nodes, similar to the Polygon ecosystem.
In order to become a validator, users must lock 10,000 BONE in the Shibarium network. Twenty-one million BONE will be reserved as rewards for validators and delegators inside the Shibarium ecosystem, and used to pay authorized gas charges.
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