Puppynet, the testnet version of the Shibarium layer-2 solution behind the Shiba Inu (SHIB) cryptocurrency, is gearing up for major tech upgrades, according to a Friday announcement.

Bor, one of the primary components of the network, will get a new version. This will be accompanied by the implementation of the Cancun hard fork. 

The upgrade is expected to bring faster transactions, ensure a more efficient storage system, and improve user experience.   

Testnets are networks that function in a similar way compared to actual networks. However, these networks are valueless. As the term suggests, such networks are meant to give developers more opportunities to toy with a certain network before trying the real thing. Testnets also help to fix possible vulnerabilities, avoiding major losses. Ethereum, for instance, has the Sepolia testnet. There are also several other tenets, such as Goerli and Kovan, that have been already deprecated.

In early August, Shibarium also introduced a hard fork with a new Bore version that introduced a burn mechanism for enhancing the ecosystem. 

The SHIB burn mechanism was initially launched for testing purposes on the Puppynet network back in February. 

In the meantime, the ecosystem is currently experiencing extreme levels of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), according to the data provided by Santiment. This is due to factors such as rapidly declining social media interest, the plunging number of retail holders, and collapsing trading volumes. It remains to be seen whether Shiba Inu will be able to turn things around, but its performance does not look promising so far.