Harmony Proposes Shutting Down Layer-1, Migrating ONE Token to Ethereum

Harmony, an Ethereum-compatible layer-1 blockchain, has proposed sunsetting its network and migrating its native ONE token to Ethereum, seven years after launching its mainnet. On September 7, 2026, the project outlined a plan to take a final network snapshot, issue ERC-20 versions of ONE on Ethereum, and transition all exchange listings to the new contract. Validators would be offered three options: shut down their nodes, continue as governors under the new structure, or join Harmony's newly announced AI-video initiative. The proposal was labeled non-binding, with no specified date for the final block and no commitment yet to submit the shutdown to the network's validator-led governance process.

Under Harmony's governance rules, passage would require 51% of total stake to participate and 66.7% support following a seven-day introduction and 14-day voting period. If approved, all ONE balances, including those in wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts, and centralized exchange accounts, would be recorded at the final block and airdropped to the same addresses on Ethereum without requiring any user claims. However, Harmony warned that multisig safes, liquidity pools, and onchain applications cannot be migrated, urging users to exit all smart contracts before September 10. Validators could begin winding down operations that same day, with a $1.372 million compensation pool reserved for those who shut down on time, retain their stakes, and agree to serve as governors.

The shutdown proposal comes less than four weeks after a major exploit forced Harmony to consider discarding more than 109,000 transactions. On August 12, Harmony revealed it was weighing a blockchain rollback after reports that an attacker had minted nearly 4 billion unauthorized ONE tokens, representing roughly 26% of total supply. An external account alleged that about 2.8 billion of those tokens reached exchanges, though Harmony had not confirmed those figures at the time. By August 17, the team announced plans to revert the chain to an August 11 checkpoint, discarding 109,126 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions, saying investigators had traced nearly all forged tokens to specific wallets or service boundaries and were coordinating with exchanges and bridges to contain the damage. The migration to Ethereum now signals a possible end to Harmony's existence as an independent blockchain.