L2 Blockchain Shibarium Halted For Over 4 Hours, $1.7 Million ETH Trapped

• The price of Shiba Inu (SHIB) dipped over 8% in the past 24 hours following what on-chain sleuth ZachXBT described as a “sloppy launch”.
• Transactions on the newly launched Shibarium bridge stopped for at least four hours at the time of writing.
• On-chain data also showed more than 1000 Ether (ETH) worth $1.7 million stuck in limbo as users bridged crypto to the layer 2 network.
• Unconfirmed reports claim that developers are unable to recover the trapped ETH.

On-chain data showed at least 1000 Ether (ETH) worth $1.7 million trapped on the Shibarium layer 2 network after its late launch on Wednesday. Users attempted to send funds via a bridge – a crypto tool used to move assets from one blockchain network to another.

At the time of writing, transactions on the blockchain remained halted for over four hours. Users also sent $750,000 worth of a Shibarium governance token dubbed BONE to the smart contract. These funds are currently stuck along with users’ ETH tokens.

Shortly after the rocky start, the project’s Discord reportedly blocked users from sending messages. Unconfirmed reports also claimed that developers are unable to recover the trapped assets.

“RPC is dead and also awful block explorer. it’s a sloppy launch regardless” said acclaimed on-chain sleuth ZachXBT as crypto X (formerly Twitter) users lodged their dissatisfaction with the launch. The price of Shiba inu (SHIB) tokens slumped over 8% following the botched rollout.

Shibarium L2

The Shibarium network is a layer 2 blockchain first proposed in 2021 by Ryoshi, the anonymous creator of Shiba Inu. Ryoshi’s idea aimed to pivot SHIB’s utility from the crazed memecoin hype in August 2020 to a fast blockchain offering cheap decentralized finance services for web3 users.

Shibarium’s development centered on an ecosystem for gaming apps and metaverse activities. Per reports, the network will tap several tokens like BONE for governance, as well as SHIB and LEASH for fees and dapp operability.