Why burning SHIB is not the key to Shibarium’s growth

Posted: September 5, 2023

• SHIB developer opined that the burn mechanism was not a catalyst for the adoption of its L2.
• Transactions increased on Shibarium while the number of SHIB burnt reduced.

Shiba Inu’s [SHIB] marketing strategist released an internal conversation where lead developer Shytoshi Kusama clarified the mission of the SHIB burn and what Shibarium needs to grow. In the conversation, which was posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Kusama noted that burns would not be the key to Shibarium’s success.

How much are 1,10,100, SHIBs worth today?

Adopt, not burn

Instead, he noted that the L2 needs to focus on adoption if it were to achieve its objectives. However, he also added that a burn portal was in the works.

So to confirm that ADOPTION is the right way🌝$SHIB Burns x Shytoshi answered pic.twitter.com/BizkLZ0V83

— 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐄 | Summer of Shibarium (@LucieSHIB) September 4, 2023

Lately, attention has shifted from the SHIB token to the Shibarium ecosystem, Shiba Inu’s L2 built on the Ethereum [ETH]. Due to the hype around the project, a lot of transactions have occurred on the network with the number of active addresses also growing.

According to the Shibarium explorer, the total addresses created on the network reached 1,117,458. Also, daily transactions on 4 August went up to 124,840.

Source: Blockscout

With a network utilization of 2.17%, the rise in transactions and wallets signifies the growing popularity and traction of the Shibarium ecosystem. SHIB burnt, on the other hand, has not been able to replicate the growth shown by Shibarium.

Based on the Shibburn hourly update, the number of tokens burnt in the last 24 hours was 9.42 million. This represents an 82.12% decrease in the last 24 hours.

HOURLY SHIB UPDATE$SHIB Price: $0.00000752 (1hr 0.25% ▲ | 24hr -2.51% ▼ )
Market Cap: $4,421,742,314 (-2.72% ▼)
Total Supply: 589,341,665,115,180

TOKENS BURNT
Past 24Hrs: 9,428,381 (-82.12% ▼)

— Shibburn (@shibburn) September 5, 2023

Holders increase, new members waiting 

For context, the SHIB burn mechanism refers to the process of removing SHIB tokens from circulation by sending them to a dead wallet. The objective behind this action is to reduce supply and possibly appreciate the price.

Therefore, the decrease in the 24-hour burn indicates that more SHIB tokens were in circulation. And it was unlikely to expect a Shiba Inu price increase for the mean time. Despite the contracting performance of SHIB, the number of holders has been growing.

According to Santiment data, about 100,000 new holders have joined the SHIB train between 4 August and the time of writing. This increase pushed the total number of holders to 1.33 million. Furthermore, the growth of the metric signifies an increase in the perception that SHIB could be a profitable asset in the long term.

Realistic or not, here’s SHIB’s market cap in DOGE terms

For the network growth, it has not exactly been the same. This metric illustrates the number of new addresses being created daily on the network.

Source: Santiment

At press time, SHIB’s network growth was down to 388. Thus, the decline suggests that the project was losing traction, and adoption over time was not at its highest.