TL;DR
- Shiba Inu’s Shibarium hit a fresh target, signaling strong user engagement.
- Despite this, SHIB’s price has recently declined, though some analysts see potential for a rebound.
Moving on to The Next Target
Shiba Inu’s team launched Shibarium (a layer-2 blockchain solution) to improve the scalability, speed, and cost-effectiveness of transactions within its ecosystem. The network saw the light of day in August last year, achieving significant success in the first months of its existence.
Daily transactions on the protocol were in the millions while the number of active accounts was also substantial, signifying high user engagement. Shibarium stalled its progress in Q2 and Q3 this year before witnessing another resurgence in the past several days. Recall that the combined processed transactions on October 22, October 23, and October 24 reached almost 10 million.
This resulted in a new massive milestone for the L2 scaling solution, with total transactions exceeding a whopping 430 million. Data shows that wallet addresses are inching toward 2 million, whereas total blocks have gone above 7.5 million.
Shibarium implemented essential upgrades in the past months to improve user experience and introduce other benefits. In April, the team launched a new user interface (UI) update, describing it as “faster, smoother, and more accessible than ever.” Its primary goal was to enable better compatibility with popular self-custody wallets such as Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and others.
Shortly after, the protocol underwent another upgrade via a hard fork. It aimed at enhancing user experience, implementing quicker block processing times, and empowering the community of developers and innovators.
SHIB Price Reaction
Shibarium’s further advancement is often touted as a factor that could positively affect Shiba Inu’s price. Nonetheless, the meme coin has been underperforming lately, with its valuation plunging by over 6% in the past week.
According to crypto analytics platform Santiment, SHIB was among the top 10 cryptocurrencies involved in the most bearish narratives on October 23 (the day when the digital asset market experienced a significant correction). The entity, though, claimed that the negative sentiment could be a precursor of a rally in the short term:
“Markets typically move the opposite direction of the crowd’s expectation, meaning the bearish narratives surrounding these coins can lead to rewarding results for those willing to go against the crowd selloffs that are beginning to mount.”
