Shiba Inu (SHIB) is planning a major new technology upgrade as part of its transition from meme coin to service currency. The new Shibarium Layer 2 Blockchain promises to bring enhanced scalability, speed and cost savings to the Shiba Inu ecosystem. However, there are many questions about Shibarium. Crypto expert Dominic Basulto clarifies the questions.
“Shiba Inu is no longer a meme coin”
As you follow on Kriptokoin.com, the Shiba Inu has already increased by more than 40% for this year. However, some investors think more could come. The meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) has surprised and delighted crypto investors this year after all the gloom and doom in 2022. And it’s not just small individual investors who have jumped into the Shiba Inu this year. It’s also the deep pocketed crypto investors known as ‘whales’ that make the Shiba Inu one of its biggest assets.
Based on all this hype and speculation, it’s natural to ask: Is the Shiba Inu real? Or are investors just trying to recoup last year’s massive crypto losses as soon as possible in 2023? While the Shiba Inu was famous for being a meme coin with little or no real benefit, investors now say it’s different. Because the Shiba Inu is getting ready to launch a big new upgrade that could change everything. Let’s dive.
Launch of Shibarium
The launch that investors are eagerly waiting for is Shibarium, a new Layer 2 Blockchain that will increase the speed and scalability of Shiba Inu. If all goes as planned, the new upgrade will lower the cost of each transaction involving the Shiba Inu, eliminate bottlenecks, and facilitate the processing of new transactions. As Shiba Inu digs deeper into gaming, Web3, and the metaverse, the developers say this enhanced speed and scalability will be essential.
However, the biggest caveat here is that the upcoming launch is only a beta test-net, not the final product. In other words, investors will have to wait even longer for the current Shiba Inu ecosystem to benefit from speed or scalability upgrades. Just like Ethereum launched a testnet last year before continuing with The Merge, Shiba Inu has to test everything before it goes live. Some crypto analysts say they expect a massive 75% increase as soon as Shibarium launches. However, it’s important not to expect too much as soon as you walk out the door.
What about the burn rate?
Shibarium also needs to include a mechanism to burn tokens. When cryptocurrencies are burned, they are sent to an unusable crypto wallet and thus removed from circulation. Theoretically, once Shibarium goes live, each transaction that takes place on this Blockchain network will burn a certain amount of SHIB. This is extremely important. Because the Shiba Inu burn rate is the single most important metric for understanding how the token will be valued. Currently, SHIB suffers from an almost unimaginable circulating supply of 549 trillion cryptocurrencies. By comparison, Bitcoin’s maximum fixed supply is 21 million tokens.
The Shiba Inu’s huge bulge in the market is the main reason it is trading at just $0.00001207. Given its current market cap of $6.6 billion, the Shiba Inu would need to reduce its circulating supply by more than 99% to trade at just $1. There’s just some simple math here, and that’s why members of the Shiba Inu ecosystem are obsessed with burning speed. The faster the combustion, the greater the price increase. In short, the faster investors can burn their SHIBs, the higher the price will see.
Here’s the thing: In the preview of the Shibarium launch, the developers don’t specifically mention what the burn rate will be. They just confirm that some cryptocurrencies will be burned. But they are asking the developers to ‘stay tuned’ to find out what that amount will be. This is a huge detail that needs to be filled. You need to know this number to value the Shiba Inu.
More than a meme coin project!
I have to applaud the Shiba Inu for trying to be more than just a meme coin. Among all the dog-themed meme coin projects out there, the Shiba Inu clearly stands out from the rest. If the Shibarium launch goes as planned, Shiba Inu may finally be ready to transition from more than just a token built on the Ethereum Blockchain to a full-fledged blockchain capable of making a splash across gaming, Web3 and the metaverse.
However, I still have deep doubts about the long-term prospects for any meme coin. And that’s especially true for the Shiba Inu, which is down 86% from its all-time high of $0.000088. The price has soared this year amid rumors that only an unfinished product will be released pending. If that’s not the definition of ‘speculative foam’, I don’t know what is.