Shiba Inu’s (SHIB) price slipped double-digits in the past 24 hours, contrary to community expectations of a strong upward trend brewing after the launch of the much-hyped Ethereum layer-2 solution, Shibarium, on Wednesday.
SHIB’s decline is attributed to certain Shibarium bridging issues encountered just a day after its rollout.
Botched Shibarium Sees $1.7M Stuck Between Networks
Shiba Inu’s Shibarium is off to a rocky start after going live late Wednesday.
A look at the network’s bridge contract, which moves funds from Ethereum to the layer-2 network, shows that roughly $1.7 million worth of ether is currently stuck between the two networks.
Blockchain security firm Beosin confirmed that the funds are indeed locked. They have recommended users briefly stop utilizing Shibarium as a precautionary measure.
Shiba Inu developer Shytoshi Kusama (a pseudonym) Shytoshi reportedly revealed that the assets stuck in the bridge could not be recovered, as per a screenshot that supposedly captures an internal conversation on Telegram between Shibarium devs.
Users swiftly voiced their concerns on the Shibarium Discord server, which led to admins temporarily “restricting access to certain channels due to the spread of misinformation and fake websites”.
The apparent sloppy launch for Shibarium impedes what was supposed to be the doorway to a fast and low-cost ecosystem. The bridge is part of a broader strategy to position Shiba Inu as a serious decentralized finance (DeFi) contender and subsequently increase its chances of leaving the meme coin category behind. Initially launched in August 2020, SHIB quickly joined the likes of Dogecoin (DOGE) as yet another meme coin to the annals of cryptocurrency comedy.
Shytoshi Publicly Denies Any Shibarium Technical Hiccups
Shytoshi has ardently refuted claims that Shibarium has any inherent issues while assuring users about the security of their funds. Kusama said in a newsletter today that the “technical difficulty is not an issue of Shibarium, but instead, from the MASSIVE influx of transactions and users that happened at the same time when we announced that the Shibarium is live.”
“There is no bridge issue, any screenshot you see of me saying any issue is false and your funds are safu,” he continued.
Nonetheless, the price of SHIB has slumped to a weekly low of $0.00000857 at press time, or down 11.2% in the last 24 hours, while governance token BONE has slipped more than 13.7% during the same timeframe as community sentiment sours. The ecosystems’ LEASH token fared far worse plunging 19.3% on the day.
