The launch of the Shibarium mainnet (a layer 2 scaling solution for the Ethereum network) seems to be off to a rocky start, at least when it comes to the price of the associated token.
With the launch of the Shibarium network on August 16, many Shiba Inu (SHIB) holders are holding out hope for a significant appreciation in the value of SHIB, Shibarium’s governance token BONE and LEASH tokens.
However, these wishes were quickly dashed.
At press time, the price of SHIB is down 8.1% in the past 24 hours, while BONE is down more than 14% in the same time frame. The ecosystem’s LEASH token, a low-supply staking rewards token, was the worst performer, down 23.5% on the day.
The price drop comes amid reports that the launch could be problematic.
According to reports, screenshots of internal Telegram conversations between Shibarium developers show lead developer Shytoshi revealing that the team was unable to recover assets bridged to the Shibarium network.
If you guys want to know how Shibarium is going pic.twitter.com/S5vjTxoMDk
— ʎppɐꓷ ɯooɹɥS (@shroom_daddy) August 16, 2023
Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT said he has yet to confirm whether the assets are actually lost, but noted that RPC (nodes that run key blockchain client software) is “dead” and described block explorers as “terrible.”
Cointelegraph confirmed using the Shibarium Scan block explorer that, at the time of writing, the last block was added seven hours ago. Some previous blocks had been mined but were still awaiting import at the time of publication.
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Another screenshot purportedly shows a Shibarium user experiencing technical issues with the block scanner, saying they were unable to query bridge balances via RPC.
But wait there’s more! pic.twitter.com/EkhLuGTT7S
— ʎppɐꓷ ɯooɹɥS (@shroom_daddy) August 16, 2023
The Shibarium RPC website is down at the time of writing.
Community members believe this could indicate a flaw in the bridge, with locked funds totaling nearly $2.46 million, including $1.7 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) and another $762,000 in BONE, Shibarium’s governance token.
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