Harmony proposed to shut down the blockchain and migrate the ONE token to Ethereum

The Layer 1 blockchain Harmony, once a major competitor to Ethereum, proposed to shut down its mainnet on Sunday, citing threats from AI entities and nation-state actors as too severe. The Harmony team stated on X that since the mainnet launched in 2019, the community has experienced multiple attacks and transformations, and now it is time to completely discontinue the Harmony network. To mitigate the threats, the team proposed migrating the ONE token to Ethereum and redirecting the issuance of newly minted tokens to its new initiative "The Remix Economy for AI Video."

According to the proposal, the migration will determine the allocation of alternative tokens received by each holder on Ethereum based on the ONE balance recorded at the final block of the network (i.e., a snapshot), covering wallets, staked tokens, validator rewards, smart contracts, and centralized exchanges. The alternative tokens will be airdropped to the same wallet address on Ethereum, and exchanges will also migrate to the new tokens. Although the proposal states that holders do not need to submit a claim, multi-signature vaults, liquidity pools, and on-chain applications cannot be migrated, and users are urged to exit all smart contracts by September 10, 2026. Harmony also proposed to pay eligible validators and their delegators in four installments from a pool of $1.372 million, provided that validators maintain their stakes, sign agreements, and serve governance roles.

This migration proposal is the latest case of blockchain networks facing increased scrutiny due to attacks. In August of this year, Harmony confirmed it was attacked, with the attackers creating approximately 4 billion unauthorized ONE tokens, prompting the team to release a patch and consider a rollback.