Shibarium runs on BONE, but the staking that secures it lives on Ethereum

Shibarium uses $BONE as its native gas token, but the mechanism that actually secures the network does not run on Shibarium at all. According to @Shibtoken's official documentation, validators and delegators must lock BONE in staking contracts deployed on Ethereum mainnet to participate in the chain's proof-of-stake consensus.

A Three-Layer Architecture

Shibarium's design is built around three interconnected layers: Ethereum, Heimdall, and Bor. The Ethereum layer hosts the staking management contracts that form the foundation of the network's security model. These contracts handle validator registration, delegation, checkpoint records, and reward distribution.

Above that sits Heimdall, the validator layer. Heimdall nodes run alongside Ethereum mainnet, monitoring the staking contracts and periodically bundling snapshots of Shibarium's activity into what are called checkpoints. Those checkpoints are then submitted to Ethereum, anchoring Shibarium's transaction history to the larger network's security. For a checkpoint to be accepted, it must be signed by at least two-thirds of the validator set by stake weight, according to L2BEAT's analysis of the protocol.

The third layer, Bor, handles the work users actually see: processing transactions, executing smart contracts, and producing blocks. Block producers are drawn from the active validator pool based on their staked BONE, with the Heimdall module selecting producers across defined periods called spans. Within each span, shorter windows called sprints assign a single block producer at a time, with backup producers designated if the primary fails to act.

Polygon's Blueprint, Adapted for Shiba Inu

The architecture is modeled closely on Polygon's proof-of-stake design, which uses the same Heimdall and Bor framework. Shibarium departs from Polygon's model primarily in its choice of staking and governance token, using BONE rather than Polygon's native asset. The practical result is a network where individual transactions are fast and cheap because they happen on Shibarium's own execution layer, while the final record of those transactions is secured by Ethereum through periodic checkpointing.

The arrangement means that anyone wishing to become a validator or delegator must interact with Ethereum mainnet directly, staking BONE into the designated contracts there before they can participate in Shibarium's consensus.

Sources:
Shibarium PoS Architecture Overview, Shib.io Official Documentation
Shibarium Security and Risk Analysis, L2BEAT
How Shibarium Works as Shiba Inu's Layer 2 Network on Ethereum, CryptoNews