Shiba Inu community clash over allegations of foul play by developers

Shiba Inu (SHIB) sank 7% over the last 24 hours following allegations Shibarium is a ripped chain.

Shibarium is a layer 2 that intends to bring scaling, speed, lower fees, and additional development capacity to the Ethereum chain. It launched its beta test, dubbed PuppyNet, on March 11.

However, as documented by @Rancune_eth, the Shiba Inu Discord is awash with heated posts following the claim that SHIB devs ripped off Rinia’s code.

@Rancune_eth’s tweet also included screenshots from community members who claimed Project Lead Shytoshi has been manipulating the community while keeping the team in the dark.

“Shibereum [sic] is a ripped chain from Rinia, they forgot to change chain ID.“

Shiba Inu foul play?

The allegations stemmed from a Discord member named “STEVE,” who pointed out that Shiba Inu’s genesis file has the same chain ID as Rinia.

“This ID is completely unique and metamask and other wallet applications use it to determine which network to send txs too [sic].”

STEVE said it looked like the Shiba Inu team took Rinia’s testnet genesis file and changed the name. But crucially, they forgot to change the chain ID.

Using an existing chain ID means users interacting with your chain would be interacting with the copied chain, said STEVE.

“Rinia has been live and owned that chain ID since Feb. And was planned in December.”

STEVE asserts that there is no way for this to happen without Shytoshi, or developer Kaal Dhairya, being in contact with the Rinia team and somehow duping them.

Shytoshi responds

Chiming in, Discord user “Trophias (PDT -8)” who identified himself as a staff member on the metaverse team, said neither he nor his colleagues know what is going on.

Trophias (PDT -8) explained that the entire team was fired by Shytoshi, but “Marcie” said the team was not fired. Since the firing and the subsequent uncertainty of being fired or not, the management has not given the team straight answers.

“They will not be transparent with us, they refuse to communicate.”

Rather ominously, Trophias (PDT -8) said, “there’s a lot you all don’t know that is being silenced.” But he refused to explain further, saying it would come out sooner or later. However, it was disclosed that Shytoshi “created manipulation against the entire team with slanderous lies.”

Responding, Shytoshi brushed off the incident as FUD. He explained that a few “chain IDs were picked randomly” during development. None of which were taken at that time. He conceded it was an oversight not to doublecheck the chain ID at the testnet launch.

“I made a mistake to not recheck when the puppynet network was launched.”

No comments were made in relation to allegations of staff being treated badly, manipulation, or lies.