Harmony Moves ONE to Ethereum as It Plans to Shut Down Its Seven-Year-Old Blockchain

Harmony, the blockchain project that launched its mainnet in 2019, is preparing for one of the biggest changes in its history. The project has proposed shutting down its own Layer-1 blockchain and moving its native ONE token to Ethereum as an ERC-20 token.

The proposal comes only weeks after Harmony suffered a major exploit that led to the creation of trillions of unauthorized ONE tokens and forced the network to plan a rollback. Now, instead of continuing to operate its own blockchain, Harmony wants to end the network and take its token and future plans in a different direction.

The proposal is still non-binding, meaning the shutdown has not been finalized. However, Harmony has already asked users with assets inside its smart contracts to take action before September 10, 2026.

 

Harmony says the decision is mainly about security. In its announcement, the project pointed to growing threats from state-backed attackers and AI agents, saying that continuing to defend its own network has become too difficult.

The decision also comes after a serious security incident in August. An attacker exploited a flaw in Harmony’s cross-shard receipt system and was able to create unauthorized ONE tokens. Harmony later determined that about 3.01 trillion ONE had been forged across six transactions.

The incident became even more serious because the network could not simply remove the affected tokens without risking further problems. Harmony therefore planned a rollback to a point before the attack. That rollback was expected to remove more than 109,000 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions from the affected period.

For Harmony, the latest proposal is therefore more than a normal blockchain upgrade. It is a decision to stop operating the network itself.

 

The new Ethereum-based ONE would use the ERC-20 token standard. Harmony says the snapshot would include ONE held in user wallets, staking positions, validator rewards and centralized exchanges.

The project has also said that users holding eligible balances would not need to manually claim the new tokens. Instead, the corresponding tokens would be issued to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum.

Importantly, this does not mean that Harmony’s entire blockchain is being transferred to Ethereum. Ethereum is not taking over Harmony’s old network. The Harmony Layer-1 itself would be shut down, while ONE would continue to exist as a token on Ethereum.

Harmony has also proposed keeping ONE’s total supply and emission rate unchanged.

 

Harmony has told users to remove their assets from smart contracts before 10 september. This is because not everything on the Harmony blockchain can simply be moved to Ethereum.

Liquidity pools, multisig wallets and on-chain applications are among the assets and systems that cannot automatically migrate under the proposed plan. Users who leave funds inside these contracts could therefore face problems after the network is shut down.

This is different from ordinary ONE balances. Wallet and exchange balances are expected to be included in the final snapshot and recreated on Ethereum.Validators are also being given the option to stop operating their nodes from September 10. Harmony has proposed a compensation pool of about $1.372 million for eligible validators and delegators who meet the conditions of the transition.

However, users should remember that the migration plan is still a proposal, Because the proposal is non-binding,but it must still pass through Harmony’s governance process, requiring a 51% total stake participation rate and 66.7% voter approval before the shutdown can be officially executed. The exact final process could change as Harmony and its community work through the shutdown.

 

Perhaps the most surprising part of the announcement is what Harmony wants to do after leaving the blockchain business.

The project is proposing a new AI-powered video initiative that it calls a “remix economy.” The idea is to create a system where AI video creators publish prompts and other content that can then be reused and remixed by users and AI agents.

Instead of using future ONE emissions mainly to support validators securing its own blockchain, Harmony wants to use them to support this new project.

Harmony has also proposed helping former validators move into new roles within the initiative. The project says the new model could eventually create a business around creators, users, AI-generated videos and advertising.This makes the situation unusual. Harmony is not simply shutting down because its token or community has disappeared. It is proposing to keep ONE alive on Ethereum while changing what the wider project is trying to build.

 

Harmony’s decision also raises a bigger question for the blockchain industry: does every crypto project still need its own blockchain?

Running an independent Layer-1 requires validators, infrastructure, security systems and constant development. Smaller networks can find it difficult to compete with large ecosystems such as Ethereum, especially when security becomes a major concern.

By moving ONE to Ethereum, Harmony would no longer need to maintain its own consensus network while still being able to keep the ONE token alive. The move also shows how difficult it can be for smaller Layer-1 networks to recover after major security incidents. Harmony already suffered the theft of nearly $100 million from its Horizon bridge in 2022, and the latest exploit added another major security problem to its history.

 

Harmony’s proposed shutdown marks a major change for a blockchain that launched seven years ago with the goal of competing in the growing Layer-1 market. Instead of continuing to defend and operate its own network, Harmony now wants to move ONE to Ethereum and focus its future efforts on an AI-powered video economy.

The plan is not final yet, but September 10 is already an important date for users with assets inside Harmony-based smart contracts. If the proposal goes ahead, Harmony will become another example of a blockchain project choosing Ethereum’s established infrastructure over maintaining its own network.