Okay, let's talk about Shiba Inu. All this has gotten everyone pumped for the big Shibarium upgrade planned for… June 2025. Quicker transactions, reduced fees … who wouldn’t be on board with that? Wait just a minute there. Are we positive this is all kittens and puppies? Or are we just fooling ourselves and creating conditions for us to trip?

Faster Isn't Always Better, Is It?

Think of it like this: You're driving a car. Sure, more horsepower is great if your brakes and handling have the ability to match that newfound power. Shibarium promises more throughput. But what does this mean for the network’s underlying security and stability? Are we 100% sure that the smart contracts undergirding this upgrade are ironclad? Unfortunate as it may be, history has shown that no blockchain is untouchable or pure.

Remember the DAO hack on Ethereum? Just one bug in the code allowed millions of dollars to be pumped out. Would a corresponding vulnerability in Shibarium’s unfamiliar code prove equally damaging, resulting in monumental losses for SHIB holders?

And what about network congestion? We’re well on our way to a reduction in whale activity, evidenced by a predicted net outflow of about 20 trillion SHIB by 2025. Whale transaction volumes have plummeted to over 90% below early-year highs. What happens if the improvement gets too popular? All at once, a flood of new users and transactions would bloat the network, perhaps preventing it from functioning in a decentralized manner. Will we see transaction fees start to increase again, undermining the whole raison d’etre for the upgrade? It’s alright to be a little cautiously optimistic, just not blindly so.

Centralization: The Elephant in the Room?

Here's where my libertarian leanings kick in. How decentralized is this upgrade, really? Or does it disproportionately benefit a cabal of validators to the detriment to the rest of the Shiba Inu ecosystem? Are we really exchanging real decentralization for fake, superficial speed and efficiency?

  • A deeper look into the validator node distribution is warranted.
  • Are there enough independent actors or is it dominated by a few large entities?
  • This centralization risk is not unique to Shiba Inu, but it's a critical question we need to ask ourselves.

I'm not saying Shibarium is inherently evil. Concentrated power is an invitation to abuse and censorship. It can introduce a single point of failure that could take the whole network down with a crash. Think about the recent Tornado Cash sanctions. The opposite: a central party dictating terms over a not-so-decentralized after all protocol. It can happen and does happen.

Burn Rate a Mirage, or Sustainable Strategy?

The burn mechanism is regularly promoted as a way to increase SHIB’s value over time. Is it working? In August 2024, Shibarium became the first blockchain to implement an automated burn mechanism, with 70% of transaction fees directed to burns. It was an increase of 18% compared to the same month last year, with around 320 million SHIB.

The burn rate has slowed recently. And still, even considering these burns, the circulating supply is through the roof – nearly 589 trillion SHIB! Are we truly doing something impactful to reduce that dire number? Or have we been pursuing a mirage? Are we honestly falling for the idea that a smaller pile of money might actually be something much more valuable?

  • The burn rate needs to drastically increase to have a meaningful impact.
  • Relying solely on transaction fees may not be enough.
  • What about exploring other burn mechanisms, such as integrating burns into the metaverse or DeFi platforms?

The Shiba Inu community (aka ” Shib Army ” ) is most certainly vibrant and deep. The amount of unique wallet addresses that hold SHIB saw an all time high of more than 1.511 million on Jun 25, 2025. That’s wonderful, but all that price action does not appear to match up with all that community and energy. Simply having more holders doesn’t ensure an increase in price. This is doubly the case if the vast majority of those holders are individual retail investors without the capital to sway the price.

So here’s hoping—for the crypto economy’s sake—that the Shibarium upgrade bucks the trend and proves to be a success. Perhaps that will be enough to save the network from all its woes and shoot SHIB up into the stratosphere. But as someone who has been in this space long enough to know hope is not a strategy.

We must engage, ask the hard questions, look for unintended consequences, and require accountability from the developers. Otherwise, that long-awaited modernization might be nothing more than a time bomb full of hope and promise just waiting to go off.