In addition to the Bitcoin crash that has brought down the crypto market, Shibarium, an Ethereum Layer 2 network developed by the Shiba Inu team, has taken a huge hit. This latest drawback comes in the form of a significant decline in the number of daily transactions being carried out on the network, leading to its lowest level in months.
Shibarium Daily Transactions Fall Below 10,000
From the end of 2023 and into the new year of 2024, the Shibarium network had been seeing a lot of adoption. This was embodied by a significant rise in the number of daily transactions that were being carried out on the network. It rose rapidly and crossed more than 7 million daily transactions in December 2023. And even after usage began to wane in the new year, the Ethereum Layer 2 network was still able to maintain an average of around 1 million transactions per day.
However, the network has entered into what seems to be an incredibly trying period with a notable crash in the number of daily transactions. This decline began on March 10 when the daily transaction figures fell below 1 million to 800,000 for the first time this year.
In the following days, the transaction count would pick up and cross 1 million again. But this was only short-lived as a bigger crash was on the horizon. March 16 was the last the Shibarium network saw daily transactions come in above 1 million as the count would crash to less than 600,000 the next day.
This decline would continue for the next few days and by Wednesday, March 30, the total daily transaction count on the Shibarium network was sitting at 9,330. The last time the daily transaction count on the network was this low was back in November 2023, which means that the transaction count has now fallen to its lowest level in four months.
Shiba Inu Price Decline To Blame?
The decline in the Shiba Inu price over the last few days can be attributed to the Bitcoin crash, which saw the price go from $73,000 to below $61,000 in a matter of days. As a result, altcoins such as Shiba Inu have been suffering as well.
This crash in price has seen investors reeling, with many not willing to gamble with their coins as they wait for prices to recover. This could explain the drastic drop in daily transactions on the Shibarium network as crypto users enter a period of waiting for what will happen next.
If this is the case, then a recovery in the price should trigger another wave of adoption for the layer 2 network. However, competition is also fierce as the likes of Solana is taking on Ethereum for the blockchain with the most active users.