Harmony proposes to end its network and migrate ONE tokens to Ethereum

Harmony proposes to shut down the Layer-1 blockchain and move ONE tokens to Ethereum.

The Harmony team has formally put forward a proposal to completely shut down its Layer-1 blockchain, which has been in operation for seven years, and migrate its native token ONE to the Ethereum network through automatic snapshots and airdrops to exist in the form of ERC-20 tokens.

According to an announcement posted on Harmony's official X (formerly Twitter) account on September 6, the proposal is currently in a "non-binding" status. However, the network has set a clear work deadline: all verifiers must start shutting down nodes from September 10, 2026. Before this date, users must exit funds in smart contracts, liquidity pools or multi-signed wallets because these assets cannot be migrated to Ethereum.

Technical details and execution mechanism

Except for the above restricted assets, everything else will be done automatically. Harmony plans to take a final snapshot of all user wallet balances, pledge orders, verifier rewards, and centralized exchange positions, and then issue equal amounts of ERC-20 tokens to the same address on Ethereum. Holders do not need to submit any claims, and the total supply and existing release plan will remain unchanged.

Harmony has set up a pool of $1.372 million for validators who close nodes on time, remain pledged, and sign up to become so-called "Governors," which will be paid out in installments over four quarters.

Security budget shifts to AI video economy

Harmony bluntly stated the reasons for the decision in its proposal: "The threat posed by state actors and artificial intelligence agents is too great."

This statement stems from a recent serious security incident. On August 12, an attacker took advantage of a vulnerability in Harmony's cross-sharding verification to minted approximately 4 billion unauthorized tier one tokens, one that accounted for approximately 26% of the network's total supply of 14.87 billion. Harmony said the attackers had moved 97% of the funds to the exchange before the team froze them. Subsequently, the network rolled back more than 141,000 blocks on a shard to eliminate the damage, but this also erased more than 109,000 legitimate transactions.

Although some reports indicate that the total circulation is close to 3 trillion ONE, this is mainly due to duplicate cross-sharding receipts in the same incident, rather than a second attack. Harmony's own calculation of the actual net loss is approximately 4 billion tokens, a figure consistent with network supply.

Under the new plan, Tier 1 token emissions originally used to pay verifiers to ensure network security will be reallocated to a seemingly unrelated project: a subscription platform called "Remix Economy for AI Video." On the platform, creators can post open prompts and material for fans and AI agents to re-mix and cut into new video clips. The platform has a monthly subscription fee of US$10, and referees receive a 30% subscription commission. Harmony expects that if platform users reach one million, advertising revenue will reach "tens of millions of dollars", with individual operators earning up to $1 million in the first year.

Market status versus industry comparison

Although Harmony describes this move as a response to new threats (That is, attackers who use AI agents to find vulnerabilities that previously took state actors years to build), but its own data reveals a more grim reality: the network's market value is only about $10.6 million, and the ONE token price is approximately $0.0007, down more than 99% from its October 2021 high of $0.38. According to DefiLlama data, the value of lock-in DeFi activity on the chain has dropped to about $45,000, a drop of 68% in just one day, indicating that users are withdrawing funds before the deadline. Maintaining security independently in such a small network is already an unsustainable business.

Harmony is not the first Layer-1 project to make such a choice this year. On August 21, BounceBit announced that it would shut down its own blockchain and reissue BB tokens on BNB Chain after an attack involving 286.5 million BB tokens (worth approximately US$3 million). In contrast, Harmony took approximately 25 days from the attack to the announcement of its shutdown, while BounceBit took only a week.

The operating mechanism for the two is almost the same: automatic reissuance on a larger chain based on the final block or pre-attack snapshot, and no claim is required. This is a stark contrast to what Celo did in 2025, when Celo chose to upgrade to Ethereum Layer-2, retaining its chain, application, and validator (turned into a sorter). Harmony and BounceBit are not upgrades, but are completely shut down.

Governance prospects and future

As of now, there is still uncertainty about whether the Harmony governance vote will actually be held. The vote requires 51% of pledged ONE's participation and more than two-thirds approval. As of press time, no special discussion thread on this proposal has appeared in the Harmony community forum, only a post on the X account on September 6. However, one fact is beyond doubt: the deadline for which validators are racing is September 10. By then, the network, which once claimed to be the "Ethereum killer", will officially allow itself to be shut down.