The Shiba Inu ecosystem team is preparing for a major transformative upgrade that would bring privacy features to its Layer-2 blockchain, Shibarium.
Marketing executive Lucie recently confirmed on X that privacy features powered by Zama’s Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) are officially on the way to Shibarium. She highlighted that the integration could introduce full on-chain privacy and confidential smart contracts across Shibarium and its gas token, BONE, before the end of Q2 2026.
Notably, this development traces back to February 2024, when the Shiba Inu ecosystem announced a strategic partnership with Zama.ai, a Paris-based open-source cryptography firm. Revealed in the Shiba Inu magazine, the team teased the collaboration as a major step toward redefining the ecosystem’s privacy and security standards.
Now, that vision is nearing reality, as Zama’s advanced FHE technology approaches full integration into the Shibarium network.
Zama Roadmap Featuring Shiba Inu
Accompanying the announcement was a screenshot of Zama’s protocol roadmap. It shows that the public testnet is already live on Ethereum’s Sepolia network. The roadmap indicates that deployment on the Ethereum mainnet, alongside ZAMA’s token generation event (TGE), will go live before the end of the year.
Following this milestone, Zama aims to extend support to EVM-compatible blockchains, including Shibarium, during the first half of 2026. It also plans to deploy its mainnet on Solana in the second half of next year.
Benefits for Shibarium
Zama’s FHE technology enables smart contracts to process encrypted inputs and return encrypted outputs, without ever requiring the data to be decrypted. For Shibarium users and developers, this unlocks an entirely new class of privacy-focused applications. These range from private on-chain transactions and wallet interactions to fully confidential DeFi protocols.
Beyond enhancing privacy, the integration seeks to improve network security and elevate Shibarium’s competitive position. It would set the blockchain apart from other meme-based projects and also from most EVM chains that lack native FHE capabilities.
Accordingly, Shibarium would evolve from a typical Layer-2 blockchain into a rare, FHE-powered privacy chain. If delivered as planned, Zama’s integration would mark one of the biggest technical advancements in Shiba Inu’s history.
Launched in August 2023, Shibarium has recorded 1.56 billion transactions. Moreover, it has produced 14.33 million blocks and attracted over 270 million interacting wallets.