SHIB Plunges 9% on Apparent Shibarium Bridge Issues

Shiba inu (SHIB) tokens slumped some 9% in the past 24 hours as users widely reported bridging issues after the much-hyped Shibarium network went live late on Wednesday.

Blockchain data shows transactions on the network were stalled for at least five hours as of time of writing. Users had transferred 954 ether (ETH), worth $1.7 million, and $750,000 worth of bone (BONE), a Shibarium governance token, to the contract.

CoinDesk tried to verify the issue and was unable to bridge tokens to Shibarium.

One of the Shibarium developers responded to reports of an outage in a blog post, stating that "there is no bridge issue" and that the problem occurred following a mass influx of transactions.

Users were blocked from sending messages on a community forum on Discord shortly after initial reports of the issues began, CoinDesk confirmed.

Bridges are blockchain-based tools that transfer tokens between different networks. These remain one of the most important – yet a very vulnerable – part of the crypto market.

The apparent faulty launch for Shibarium stutters what was supposed to be the gateway to a vibrant and cheap ecosystem. The network is part of a broader plan to position Shiba Inu as a serious blockchain project, away from the meme coin status it has enjoyed since its August 2020 issuance.

Shibarium joins an increasingly crowded blockchain landscape; there are at least 50 other networks hoping to lure users with low fees to an ecosystem focused mainly on financial services and gaming.

The network utilizes bone (BONE), SHIB and leash (LEASH) tokens for applications built on the blockchain and is said to have a focus on metaverse and gaming applications.

However, each of these tokens was down in the past 24 hours. Bone dropped 13% while LEASH fell 25% as community sentiment soured.

UPDATE (August 17, 2023, 12:55 UTC): Adds quote from Shibarium developer.