Harmony to Shut Down Mainnet, Migrate ONE to Ethereum

Highlights

Harmony has put forward two governance proposals to fully retire the mainnet it has run since 2019.
The plan would migrate the native ONE token to Ethereum through a wallet snapshot and automatic airdrop, with no action required from holders.
The team cites nation-state attackers and AI agents as the threats driving the decision to close the network.
Harmony plans to redirect the project toward an AI video remix economy business, funded by newly issued tokens.

Harmony has published two governance proposals that would shut down its mainnet entirely and migrate its native ONE token to Ethereum, marking the end of the network's run as an independent layer-1 blockchain since its 2019 launch. The team said the closure is a direct response to the scale of threats now facing smaller, independently secured chains, specifically naming nation-state attackers and AI-driven agents as the catalysts for the decision. Under the proposal, ONE would live on as an Ethereum-based token rather than disappear, with Harmony pairing the shutdown with a pivot toward a new business built around AI-generated video, which the team is calling a remix economy.

How the Migration Would Work

The mechanics are designed to require no active participation from most holders. At the network's final block, Harmony would take a snapshot of every user wallet, active staking delegation, outstanding validator reward, deployed smart contract, and ONE balance held on centralized exchanges. New ONE tokens would then be airdropped on Ethereum to the same wallet addresses captured in that snapshot, meaning holders would not need to submit a claim or take any manual migration step to receive their tokens. Delegated stakes and any rewards that had not yet been claimed at the time of the snapshot would instead be airdropped to governance treasuries controlled by the relevant validators, rather than to the individual delegators directly. Harmony said the token's total supply and its existing issuance rate would remain unchanged through the migration, with newly issued tokens going toward funding the AI video business, subject to further community governance feedback before that spending begins.

A Shutdown Shaped by a Recent Exploit

The proposal lands roughly a month after Harmony suffered one of the more severe incidents in its history: an attacker exploited a flaw in the chain's block-production logic in August to mint billions of unauthorized ONE tokens, an episode detailed in Harmony's ONE token sinking 37% after the attacker minted 4 billion tokens, which sent the token sharply lower and forced the team into emergency incident response. That history gives the new shutdown proposal's stated rationale, nation-state-caliber attackers targeting smaller chains, added weight, even though Harmony has not explicitly tied the governance proposals to the August exploit in its public framing. The episode also fits a broader pattern playing out across aging layer-1 networks that launched during the 2019-2021 cycle: as security budgets and validator sets fail to keep pace with the sophistication of attackers now probing smaller chains, several such networks have opted to consolidate onto Ethereum or another established base layer rather than continue running independent consensus and bridge infrastructure indefinitely, a trend that echoes MANTRA's own network halt after an unspecified incident earlier this year.

For ONE holders, the practical impact is mostly about custody rather than value: tokens held in self-custody wallets or on exchanges that support the migration should convert automatically, though holders using wallets or platforms that do not track the snapshot could face friction claiming their Ethereum-based ONE. The move also strips Harmony of one of its defining features, an independent sharded consensus layer, in favor of inheriting Ethereum's security budget, a trade-off other struggling layer-1 teams have increasingly judged worthwhile given the cost of independently defending a chain against modern attack techniques, an approach also seen in Core DAO's emergency hard fork after validators overdrew rewards.

What Comes Next

The two proposals still need to clear Harmony's governance process before any snapshot date is finalized, and the team has said it will incorporate community feedback on how the newly issued tokens funding the AI video pivot should be allocated. Holders should watch for an official snapshot block height and airdrop claim details once governance approves the plan, along with confirmation from major exchanges listing ONE on whether they will support the migration automatically. The timeline for the AI video remix economy business launching in parallel with the migration has not yet been disclosed.

FAQ

Is Harmony's mainnet actually shutting down?
Harmony has proposed shutting down its mainnet through two governance proposals that still need to pass before the shutdown and token migration become final.

What happens to ONE tokens during the migration?
Harmony would take a snapshot of all wallets, staking delegations, and exchange balances at the final block, then automatically airdrop new ONE tokens on Ethereum to the same addresses, with no claim required.

Why is Harmony shutting down its network?
The team cited threats from nation-state attackers and AI-driven agents as the reasons for closing the network, a decision that follows a major exploit in August 2026 that saw an attacker mint billions of unauthorized ONE tokens.

What is Harmony's AI video remix economy?
It is a new business direction the team plans to pursue after the migration, funded by newly issued ONE tokens, though full details have not yet been disclosed.