On Thursday, November 27, a Shiba Inu executive, Lucie, confirmed that the Shibarium team is gearing up for a major privacy upgrade as the Zama public testnet goes live.

The upgrade, slated for completion before the end of Q2 2025, will enable Shibarium to leverage Zama’s Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology. This development is set to bring full on-chain privacy and confidential smart contracts to the Shibarium ecosystem, redefining privacy and security standards across the SHIB network.

Zama Testnet and Roadmap

Lucie shared an image detailing Zama’s updated protocol roadmap, showing that the public testnet is live, while the Ethereum mainnet deployment occurred in the last quarter of 2025. Broader EVM-chain support is expected in early 2026.

As Shibarium is fully EVM-compatible, it will automatically benefit from Zama’s next expansion, unlocking encrypted transactions, confidential smart contract logic, and private user interactions as native features powered by fhEVM.

Privacy-Focused Layer-2 for Developers

This upgrade positions Shibarium as a privacy-centric EVM Layer-2 network, catering to developers building next-generation DeFi, gaming, governance, and institutional tools without exposing sensitive user data.

Zama aims to resolve the challenges posed by overly transparent public blockchains, which can reveal user behavior and contract details to anyone with a block explorer. By enabling smart contracts to run fully on-chain while keeping all data encrypted, Zama preserves both transparency and confidentiality—a breakthrough for privacy-focused decentralized applications.

Implications for SHIB Token

With Shibarium embracing confidential computing, adoption is expected to increase among DeFi users, potentially boosting demand for SHIB and supporting a positive price trajectory. The combination of scalable Layer-2 infrastructure and privacy-first technology may make Shibarium a go-to platform for developers and institutions seeking secure, confidential blockchain solutions.