Ever wondered why so many meme coins are based on the dog meme?

Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Tamadoge...

Yeah, same.

Guess people just really like dogs?

Until recently, we had a pretty simple attitude towards meme coins, that went a little something like this:

"They make Twitter way more entertaining, but not much else."

...that attitude may soon be changing.

Over the weekend, the Shiba Inu team announced that they'll be launching 'Shibarium,' a Layer-2 blockchain that runs on top of the Layer-1 Ethereum blockchain that SHIB currently uses.

Without going too deep into 'layers,' suffice to say that Shibarium will let transactions be more scalable, faster, with lower fees, and be way easier to develop with.

(Think of it like iOS being the Layer-1 operating system and apps being the Layer-2's built on top of that operating system).

So why is this important?

While plenty of Layer-2's already exist on top of Ethereum, this rather huge update by SHIB's developers shows that the team behind the project aren't just a bunch of larrikins - but legitimate engineers, with a legitimate roadmap, creating legitimate value.

(Legitimately).

Sure, Shiba Inu may have started as a meme, but it's gone way beyond that now.

2022 was a tough year for crypto projects - but the ones that have survived, and thrived, are the ones with solid communities, a great group of core developers, and a reason for people to invest (beyond "Elon said to").

The bear market has shaken out all of the projects lacking solid fundamentals...and SHIB is still here.

So maybe it's about to leave its 'meme coin' status behind?

We'll have to wait and see.