The launch of the beta version of Shibarium, the layer-2 network if Shiba Inu, is getting closer and closer. As NewsBTC reported, lead developer Shytoshi Kusama published a blog post yesterday in which he informed about the upcoming steps before the launch.

What is clear at the moment is that Shibarium will be released before May 2023, although there are rumors that the launch could be completed much sooner, possibly within the next week. And the Shiba Inu-based Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) token is significantly outperforming SHIB over the past week in anticipation of that.

While BONE is up about 10% in the last 24 hours and 34% over the last seven days, SHIB is down 2% on the day, up roughly 8% over the last week. With its recent strong performance, BONE has even entered the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. With a total market capitalization of $426.8 million, BONE is currently ranking 98th. But what’s the reason?

Why Does BONE Outperform Shiba Inu?

First and foremost, the already suspected launch of Shibarium seems to be a key driver of BONE’s price rally. BONE will play a pivotal role in Shibarium and for the Shiba Inu ecosystem in general. The BONE token will have a number of use cases once the layer-2 blockchain is deployed. The Twitter account “BoneShibaSwap,” popular in the Shiba Inu community, :

The most important topics for everyone!
1. It has been confirmed that Shibarium Beta will be released next week
2. Over a million Shiba holders will buy Bone for very low fees and burn Shib with every transaction.
3. You will need Bone for everything in the SHIB ecosystem

The backdrop is that BONE will be the only governance token of the layer-2 technology. On February 16, the Unification team released the first BONE proposal, which also started BONE’s price rally. Developer Ringoshi Tōitsu via Twitter that they plan to create a FUND liquid staking derivative token on Ethereum that will allow anyone to stake ETH-based funds and receive sFUND. This would be similar to Frax Finance, which creates liquidity on Curve as well as staking incentives. Regarding Bone ShibaSwap (BONE), developer Ringoshi Toitsu explained on Twitter that BONE could be staked on Shibarium while receiving back a wrapped version of it called tBONE. Ultimately, this means that tBONE could be paired with BONE to earn a higher annual percentage rate (APR) while helping to maintain Shibarium’s liquidity. With the addition of this strong use case, BONE has seemingly gained traction from a fundamental perspective. BONE’s limited supply meets a strong use case as well as growing hype around Shibarium.

BONE Price Today

At press time, BONE was trading at $1.86, failing on its first attempt at the crucial resistance of $1.96. If the launch of Shibarium is indeed confirmed next week, BONE may break through this level and target the all-time high of $2.38.