Harmony proposes ending its mainnet, migrating ONE to Ethereum

Harmony proposed retiring its layer-1 blockchain, taking a final snapshot of account states and issuing ERC-20 ONE tokens on Ethereum to addresses recorded at a final block. The proposal is described as non-binding and does not set a date for a final block or specify whether the shutdown will be submitted to the network’s validator-led governance process.

Under the network’s governance rules, elected validators may create proposals and unelected validators may vote, with voting power tied to stake. Formal approval would require participation representing 51% of total stake weight and 66.7% support after a seven-day introduction and a 14-day voting period.

The planned snapshot would record wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchange balances. New ERC-20 ONE tokens would be airdropped to recorded addresses without claims. The proposal notes that multisignature safes, liquidity pools and some on-chain applications cannot be migrated and urges users to exit smart contracts before Sept. 10.

Validators would be offered options to stop running nodes, remain as governors for the migrated token, or join a separate AI-video initiative the team has proposed. The plan allows validators to begin shutting down nodes on Sept. 10 and allocates a $1.372 million pool to compensate validators that stop on time, retain their stakes and agree to serve as governors.

The proposal follows an exploit that allowed an attacker to mint nearly 4 billion unauthorized ONE tokens, roughly 26% of the supply. Harmony earlier planned a rollback to an Aug. 11 checkpoint that would discard 109,126 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions. Investigators traced nearly all forged tokens to wallets or service boundaries and coordinated with exchanges, bridges and law enforcement.

If approved and executed, exchange listings would be migrated to ERC-20 ONE on Ethereum and recorded addresses would receive a no-claims airdrop. Users who rely on multisignature setups or certain decentralized finance constructs must withdraw funds and close positions before the stated cutoff to retain access and control over balances.