GnosisDAO endorses Gnosis chain to be included in the Ethereum Economic Zone

GnosisDAO approves major changes: Gnosis Chain will transform into a ZK-certified Ethereum Economic Area (EEZ) Rollup

GnosisDAO has approved a major change to Gnosis Chain, paving the way for the network to transform from a stand-alone layer-1 to a ZK-certified Ethereum Economic Area (EEZ) Rollup. The vote revolved around the GIP-153 proposal, which would effectively retire the existing set of validators and migrate transaction settlement to Ethereum.

According to Gnosis Chain, the proposal was passed with a vote of 123,158 GNO votes in favor, 115 against, and 151 abstentions, with a total of 54 voters participating. The total number of votes cast reached 123,425 GNOs, exceeding the legal minimum threshold of 75,000 GNOs.

Core Points

GIP-153 received governance approval and will transform Gnosis Chain into an EEZ Rollup for settlement on Ethereum. Existing verifier infrastructure will be retired and settlement responsibilities will be transferred to Ethereum verifiers. The target time is set for late 2026 or early 2027, depending on the readiness of EEZ technology. The EEZ concept aims to reduce fragmentation by enabling smart contract execution across Rollup without relying on cross-chain bridges. Standard Chartered expects this to reduce reliance on cross-chain bridges and improve on-chain availability, which in turn may increase the volume of activity on Ethereum.

What GIP-153 approves and how it will change the user experience

In the proposal, Gnosis Chain outlines a path that aims to align Gnosis Chain with Ethereum by turning it into a Rollup instance under the EEZ framework. The core mechanism is very straightforward: the current set of validators will be retired and transactions will be settled on Ethereum. Under this architecture, Gnosis Chain becomes the second layer (Layer-2) that relies on Ethereum for settlement, while still supporting "Gnosis Chain native smart contracts."

The proposal also points to a feature designed to bring important changes to developers and decentralized applications (dApps): contracts on Gnosis Chain will be able to call Ethereum and use the call results in the same transaction. If implemented as described, the design is designed to provide tighter integration of Ethereum mainnet assets and liquidity than currently existing L2 deployments.

Gnosis Chain further stated that it will maintain critical continuity for users, including retaining its existing applications and balances, as well as xDAI gas tokens.

EEZ Framework: Unified Rollup to Solve L2 Fragmentation Problems

The EEZ concept is not limited to a single network. It is described as a framework developed by Gnosis and ZisK and funded by the Ethereum Foundation to build Rollup aligned with Ethereum. The intention is to unify Ethereum's current fragmented expansion pattern.

Today's reality of Ethereum's expansion is defined by the proliferation of multiple Rollups, each with its own liquidity pool, infrastructure options, and user access patterns. This separation reduces composability-especially when the application wants to interact with states or assets between different Rollups. The EEZ approach targets one of the most persistent scaling tradeoffs: increasing throughput at the expense of fragmentation.

According to the vision of the proposal, the first production-level EEZ instance will be deployed through Gnosis Chain while retaining its existing ecosystem. The broader goal is to enable smart contracts on different participants in Rollup to be executed simultaneously without relying on cross-chain bridges, which the proposal regards as a structural weakness in current cross-chain interactions.

This argument is in line with previous criticisms of the L2 design. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin had previously expressed concerns about centralized sorters and trusted bridging mechanisms as potential vulnerabilities, and wrote in a February 3 platform post on X: "The original vision of L2 and its role in Ethereum is no longer reasonable and we need a new path."

As background, L2Beat data cited in Gnosis-related reports shows that 22 Ethereum Rollups are currently in a "safe" state, guaranteeing a value of US$27.82 billion. When expanded to include Validium, Optimum and other expansion networks, the total guarantee value tracked rose to $34.88 billion.

Why reducing reliance on cross-chain bridges is a key selling point

Cross-chain bridge risks are a common topic in Ethereum expansion discussions, because cross-chain bridges are often the point of failure in major cross-chain incidents. Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered Bank, believes EEZ can help reduce reliance on these fragile components.

In a May 28 report, Kendrick wrote that EEZ "will bring benefits of reducing the need for cross-chain bridges (where hacks often occur) and improving the availability of assets along the EVM chain." He added that both factors "could lead to more active activity within the Ethereum ecosystem."

Kendrick's view also emphasizes composability. He believes that EEZ can allow smart contracts on different participating networks to interact in the same transaction. This distinction is important for investors, traders, and users, because better composability can translate into a smoother execution path for complex DeFi operations-potentially reducing the friction users face when moving assets across ecosystems before a transaction is completed.

Nevertheless, the actual timetable still depends on development readiness. Gnosis Chain said initial launch targets are set for late 2026 or early 2027, depending on whether the required EEZ technology is ready. Until then, many issues-especially those surrounding performance, final features, and integration details-are likely to remain at the level of documentation and engineering milestones rather than actual production behavior.

Follow Gnosis Chain's next step towards EEZ

This governance vote is an important milestone, but it is not the final conclusion of implementation. Readers should pay attention to how Gnosis Chain and its partners put the EEZ transformation into practice: whether settlement on Ethereum is implemented as expected, how contracts 'ability to invoke Ethereum in a single transaction is realized, and how users can experience the migration process while retaining existing applications, balances and xDAI gas tokens.

The next key signal is likely to come from engineering updates leading to the end of 2026/early 2027 target period-especially those benchmark or testnet deployments that clarify the meaning of "ZK Certification" and "Ethereum Economic Zone" in terms of day-to-day performance and developer tools. If EEZ's argument holds true, its broader impact could be a more unified Ethereum environment, where interoperability is achieved by design rather than by bridging after the fact.