Key Takeaways
- On Friday, September 13, the bridge to Shiba Inu’s Layer 2, Shibarium, was drained of crypto.
- Post-exploit, SHIB and BONE have crashed.
- Some community members criticized the lead Shibarium developer, Shytoshi Kusama, who has recently been working on AI-focused ecosystem projects.
With the price of Shiba Inu (SHIB) crashing 12% in the wake of a major hack on its Layer 2 (L2) network—Shibarium—lead developer Shytoshi Kusama has sought to calm the markets.
Alongside fellow Shibarium developer, Kaal Dhairyain, Shytoshi said he was in “the war room” following the hack, although he acknowledged that his recent focus has been on AI initiatives in the broader Shiba Inu ecosystem.
Shibarium Hack Tanks SHIB and BONE
On Friday, Sept. 13, Shibarium’s bridge to Ethereum was exploited to the tune of $2.4 million.
The attacker used a flash loan to temporarily borrow 4.6 million BONE, Shibarium’s native token.
Even though they didn’t own them outright, the borrowed tokens temporarily gave them a majority of the network’s validator stake, which they used to push through a malicious state change.
This allowed them to drain approximately 224.57 ETH and 92.6 billion SHIB that were locked in the bridge contract.
The timing of the incident cut short what had been a weeklong rally for SHIB, which had just recovered from a challenging August. From a monthly high of 0.0000146, the memecoin had crashed 12% to 0.0000130 by Tuesday.
The fallout from the hack was even worse for BONE, which declined more than 43% in the same period.
Shibarium Devs Under Fire
In an announcement on Friday, Dhairyain sought to reassure Shibarium users.
The project’s team had successfully frozen the 4.6 million BONE, he said, preventing any further attacks on the network or its bridge. As a precautionary measure, the team temporarily moved stake manager funds into a hardware wallet and suspended staking and unstaking.
Post-hack, the SHIB Army has been critical of the project’s leadership.
Tagging Shytoshi and Dhairyain, one X user pointed out that L2Beat highlighted Shibarium security concerns months ago. “Despite so much time passing, why haven’t the network deficiencies been fixed?” they asked.
Meanwhile, initial silence from Shibarium’s lead developer, Shytoshi, was met with criticism from the community.
“Why has @ShytoshiKusama been so quiet lately?” one user lamented.
“How can someone claim to be a leader if they’re vocal only during good times but absent when accountability is needed?” They added.
Shytoshi Kusama Responds
Responding to community outrage in a post on Monday, Shytoshi said that “to suggest that I am anywhere except beside [other Shibarium developers] figuring out next steps is utterly preposterous.”
“Yes, we are on it, in the war room, so to speak,” he stressed.
Although he insisted the recent bridge attack has his full attention, Shytoshi acknowledged that he have been busy with other projects.
Throughout 2025, the lead Shibarium developer has taken a step back from the L2, turning his attention to other projects and hinting at upcoming AI initiatives.
For instance, updates to his X bio reference an upcoming whitepaper tying AI, SHIB, $SHY, and DAO roles. In an episode of his podcast in April, he discussed AI’s role in building “the operating system of the future.”
Confirming his change of priorities, Shytoshi’s post on Monday said: “my focus now lies outside Shib as I push for AI initiatives to better all our tokens.”
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James Morales is CCN’s blockchain and crypto policy reporter. He has been working in the news media since 2020, writing about topics such as payments, banking and financial technology. These days, he likes to explore the latest blockchain innovations and the evolving landscape of global crypto regulation.
With an educational background in social anthropology and media studies, James uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.
