Layer-2 network Shibarium seems to have completely moved past its botched launch, as multiple metrics suggest that the network is growing at an impressive rate since it relaunched on August 27. 

Shibarium Crosses 2 Million Transactions

The Shibarium network is growing rapidly and has now processed over 2.1 million transactions, according to data from the block explorer Shibariumscan. This suggests that the network is enjoying massive user adoption, especially with Shibarium touted as a cheaper alternative to Ethereum. 

The network enjoyed its best day yet on September 10 in terms of transactions processed, as it recorded close to 203,000 transactions (its highest since launching on August 16.) 

The massive user adoption is also evident in the number of wallet addresses created on the network, as the wallet count has crossed 1.12 million already.

The network has not experienced any hiccups since it relaunched, with over 589,000 blocks produced on the network. This is despite Block production being paused following the difficulties the network experienced upon launch. 

Shibarium is also living up to the hype of being a cheaper and faster alternative, especially for decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. The network currently has an average gas fee of 1.83 gwei and an average block time of 5 seconds. For context, Ethereum, the leading DeFi blockchain, has an average gas fee of 8 gwei and an average block time of more than 12 seconds. 

The Shibarium team’s scaling efforts also seem to be paying off, with the network utilization at less than 7%, meaning that the network can handle much more traffic than it is currently processing.

Following its troubled start, lead developer Shytoshi Kusama pointed to the fact that Shibarium experienced a “massive influx of transactions and users that happened at the same time,” and that was what led to the network going offline. 

As part of efforts to scale the network following that event, the team had to enlist the help of Polygon, of which Kusama mentioned that they responded quickly and provided “additional resources” to help scale the network. 

What Is Happening With SHIB?

Shiba Inu’s (SHIB) value was expected to rise following Shibarium’s launch. The layer-2 network had adopted the token as one of its governance tokens, and many projected that this added utility would have an immense impact on SHIB’s price.

Furthermore, Shibarium’s whitepaper (famously known as the ShibPaper) described SHIB as the “core” of the ecosystem. It stated that every SHIB holder could vote on important decisions in the ecosystem, with such a move expected to encourage more people to invest in the token.

Despite this, SHIB’s price hasn’t reacted positively, as the meme coin is down over 22% in the last month (from around when Shibarium launched). However, one may argue that the token is simply succumbing to bear market pressure and is most likely oversold.