cryptoglobe.com
The largest whales of the Ethereum ($ETH) network have accumulated around $85 million worth of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB), ahead of the expected launch of Shibarium, the cryptocurrency’s layer-2 scaling solution.
According to data shared by whale monitoring service WhaleStats, Ethereum whales’ third-largest holding is the meme-inspired cryptocurrency, behind Bitpanda’s ecosystem token ($BEST) and Locus Chain ($LOCUS).
🐳 The top 500 #ETH whales are hodling
— WhaleStats (tracking crypto whales) (@WhaleStats) January 14, 2023
$148,197,940 $BEST
$85,540,230 $LOCUS
$84,571,717 $SHIB
$61,997,059 $BIT
$57,980,317 $UNI
$56,226,206 #UnknownToken
$50,710,608 $MATIC
$36,478,758 $LINK
Whale leaderboard 👇https://t.co/tgYTpOm5ws pic.twitter.com/K09YHq6zY8
It’s worth noting that the list excludes stablecoins like SDT, USDC, and BUSD, as well as the network’s native currency ether ($ETH), which can be staked and used to pay transaction fees on Ethereum.
The accumulation comes ahead of the expected launch of Shibarium, an upcoming layer-2 solution that aims to improve the Shiba Inu ecosystem by providing faster transactions at a lower cost, among other important improvements. There are still a lot of questions surrounding the release and utility of Shibarium, however.
Shibarium will work alongside Ethereum to process transactions on the Shibarium ecosystem. It will take a large cut of the transaction load the Shiba Inu ecosystem currently brings onto Ethereum to process it on the Shibarium chain.
Further, the layer-2 will remove tokens from circulating to reduce supply and help boost the price. This is known as a token burning mechanism, in which tokens are sent to wallets that can only receive tokens but not send them, also called Dead Wallets. Shibarium will burn $SHIB and require $BONE for transactions.
Shiba Inu developer Shytoshi Kusama has recently hinted Shibarium will launch “very soon.”
Happy Holidays to more than half the 🌎. Wen Shibarium? Please know it will come very soon*, but not during a crucial time for people to spend with their family (or the resulting New Years party time). Enjoy these next days, next year is an important one for humanity.
— Shytoshi Kusama™ (@ShytoshiKusama) December 24, 2022
Shibarium was first proposed by the creator of Shiba Inu, anonymous developer Ryoshi. However, on the now-deleted blog post, Ryoshi wasn’t sure about whether it was its own blockchain or an L2 —but the line that separates the two is rather thin: “The line between an L2 and own blockchain is thin, I mean what is the difference really between Matic L2 [Polygon] and BSC [BSC has since rebranded to BNB Chain]”
However, it seems Shibarium will remain its own layer-2, according to a blog post from the developers. That means there will be no SHIB 2.0, since it will remain connected to Ethereum.
Image Source
Featured image via Pixabay.