Shiba Inu-backed devs launch first defi bridge linking 3 major blockchains

The team behind the Shiba Inu-powered token Sharbi announced a new bridge to ferry liquidity and cryptocurrencies between Shibarium and major blockchains. 

Sharbi developers introduced FETCH on Feb. 14, a multichain bridging solution connecting Ethereum and layer-2 network Arbitrum to Shibarium, a Layer 2 scaling chain central to the Shiba Inu ecosystem. 

Blockchains are typically standalone, restricting currencies issued on these decentralized networks from being moved to other chains. Developers created defi bridges to tackle this issue, allowing participants to transfer tokens between blockchains.

FETCH was announced a few weeks after Sharbi celebrated a year of contributing to the Shiba community. The solution was built using solidity, a popular defi programming language. Sharbi devs said FETCH will slash off-chain bridging time from nearly a week to under 30 seconds.

Investors understand the frustration of having their hands tied when they recognize an opportunity but can’t access their funds fast enough to capitalize on it. FETCH will be truly transformative for the Shibarium ecosystem, empowering users to bridge between chains in seconds, not days.

Andrew Rosemond, Sharbi core team member

Rosemond added that FETCH was in development for months before being launched as the first multichain bridge to provide Shibarium users exposure to other blockchains. A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is poised to vote on FETCH-supported tokens. This will include SHARBI and BONE, as well as others decided by the DAO. 

What is Shibarium and Shiba Inu?

Shibarium is an Ethereum layer-2 scaling chain launched in August last year by Shiba Inu builders as part of an expansion strategy. The platform suffered setbacks during its initial launch but recovered, hitting 100,000 wallets shortly after re-launch.

According to Shibariumscan, the network has processed over 349 million transactions from 1.3 million wallet addresses across 3 million blocks.

More than 8,900 tokens and 15,000 smart contracts run atop Shibarium. Shiba Inu (SHIB) is the second-largest memecoin after Dogecoin (DOGE), with its $5 billion market cap, per CoinGecko.