Ronin Ethereum launches Layer 2 migration

Ronin Ethereum is migrating to a Layer 2 on May 12 with roughly 10 hours of scheduled downtime.

Ronin, the gaming-focused blockchain behind Axie Infinity, is executing a hard fork on May 12 to complete its transition from an independent sidechain to an Ethereum Layer 2. The migration was announced in April and will trigger at block 55,577,490, expected around 15:16 UTC.

All Ronin transactions will pause for roughly 10 hours during the migration window. That covers transfers, swaps, NFT trades, and smart contract interactions. Node operators on Ronin mainnet are required to upgrade to release 1.2.2 before the hard fork.

What changes after the migration

Ronin said the move is about plugging “back into the mothership.” The new structure will link the network directly to Ethereum for settlement and data availability, replacing the older nine-validator sidechain model with OP Stack rollup infrastructure.

RON token inflation will fall sharply from over 20% annually to below 1% under a new Proof of Distribution model. Marketplace fees will also rise from 0.5% to 1.25%, with 90 million RON tokens previously allocated for staking redirected to the Ronin treasury.

Ronin will integrate EigenDA to handle data availability for transactions, storing data off-chain while keeping it verifiable and accessible to Ethereum. The migration brings Ronin into the same OP Stack ecosystem as other chains including Celo and Fraxtal.

Context: the $625 million hack that made this necessary

While operating as an independent sidechain in March 2022, Ronin suffered the largest DeFi bridge exploit in history, with $625 million in ETH and USDC drained from its bridge. The attack exposed the structural risks of the sidechain model, where only a small number of centrally-managed validators were responsible for securing the network.

The Layer 2 transition directly addresses those concerns by inheriting Ethereum’s security rather than relying on Ronin’s own validator set. The Ronin bridge previously migrated to Chainlink’s cross-chain interoperability protocol in April 2025 as an earlier step in securing its infrastructure ahead of the full L2 move.