The launch of Shiba Inu’s highly anticipated layer-2 solution Shibarium has been immediately met with a critical technical hurdle.
An estimated $1.7 million worth of Ethereum is currently stuck on Shibarium’s bridge contract, unable to be transferred back to the Ethereum mainnet. The bridge contract facilitates the movement of assets between the two networks.
Blockchain security analysts Beosin confirmed the trapped funds and advised users to stop interacting with Shibarium for the time being. In addition, around $762,000 worth of BONE tokens have also been transmitted to the faulty contract.
No new transactions have gone through on Shibarium for over three hours at the time of writing, suggesting the network is essentially frozen.
Lead Shiba Inu developer Shytoshi Kusama denied the issues stem solely from the bridge, instead attributing the problems to overwhelming traffic after launch. The team is purportedly working to scale up the network to handle demand.
In the interim, Discord moderators have restricted access to some community channels due to the spread of misinformation as users grapple to understand the situation.
The technical problems have resulted in plunging prices for Shiba Inu (SHIB) and its ecosystem tokens. SHIB is down 8% currently, while BONE and LEASH have dropped 20% and 22% respectively.
While the Shiba Inu team scrambles to find solutions, the rocky launch of Shibarium will likely shake confidence in the network. Until the trapped Ethereum and scaling issues are transparently addressed, users may be wary of entrusting their assets to the layer-2 platform.
