Key Reason Behind SHIB’s Sudden Plunge After Shibarium’s Launch

Shiba Inu’s much-anticipated layer-2 solution, Shibarium, officially launched on the mainnet this Wednesday. However, the debut was not without its controversies.

As of press time, the Shib Mainnet RPC, accessible via https://www.shibrpc.com, is currently down. This has raised concerns among the cryptocurrency community, especially given the significant amount of Ethereum (ETH) locked in the Shibarium cross-chain bridge.

According to monitoring by Beosin, transactions on Shibarium are stuck in a pending state. A staggering $1.7 million in ETH is currently locked on the Shibarium cross-chain bridge, leading Beosin to advise users to temporarily halt any activities on Shibarium.

This comes after the Shibarium testnet saw the creation of over 21 million wallet addresses, indicating a high level of interest and activity in the lead-up to the mainnet launch.

Adding to the uncertainty, an unverified message allegedly from Shiba Inu’s founder, Shytoshi Kusama, has been circulating on social media. The message reads, “We f**ked up hard. We cannot even recover ETH bridge.” This purported internal Telegram chat message has yet to be confirmed as authentic by U.Today.

The technical glitches have had a direct impact on Shiba Inu’s market performance. The SHIB price has plummeted, currently trading at $0.00000931, marking a 6.7% drop, according to CoinGecko data.   

Social media has been abuzz with reactions to the botched launch. Crypto enthusiasts have taken to platforms like X to express their skepticism and mock the situation. Comments range from suggesting alternative blockchain solutions to outright declaring the death of Shibarium mere hours after its launch.

As the SHIB community awaits further clarity, Shytoshi Kusama has yet to issue an official statement addressing the controversy after spending months hyping up the Shibarium launch.