Harmony Proposes Shutting Down Its Layer 1 and Moving ONE to Ethereum
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September 7, 2026 7:12 am
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Harmony is proposing an ending few Layer 1 projects ever write for themselves: shut down the chain, move the ONE token to Ethereum and redirect the organization toward an AI-video economy.
This goes far beyond a bridge migration or technical upgrade. According to The Block’s summary of Harmony’s announcement, validators could begin turning off nodes on September 10.
The network would take a final snapshot and recreate eligible ONE balances on Ethereum.
The same report says the migration is designed to cover ordinary wallet balances, delegated stakes, validator rewards, contracts and tokens held at centralized exchanges. The token’s total supply and emission schedule would carry over rather than reset.
Some positions cannot make that trip automatically. Harmony specifically warns that multisig safes, liquidity pools and onchain applications need attention before the shutdown date, creating a hard operational deadline for users who still have assets working inside the network.
Harmony framed the decision around escalating security pressure, including threats from state actors and AI agents. The team said the community had endured attacks and major changes since mainnet launched in 2019, but concluded it was time to fully wind the network down.
The first of Harmony’s two official posts lays out the proposed blockchain exit:
— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) September 6, 2026
The migration would aim to preserve balances held in ordinary wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchanges at the final block. New ONE tokens would then be airdropped to corresponding Ethereum addresses, with the existing total supply and emission rate carried over.
That headline sounds simple. The fine print is not.
Harmony says multisig safes, liquidity pools and onchain applications cannot be migrated automatically. Users with assets inside those contracts are being urged to exit before September 10.
Delegated stakes and unclaimed rewards would instead move into individual “governor vaults.” Exchange users need to check how their own trading platform will handle the transition.
The proposal follows another major security crisis. The Block reported that an August exploit used flaws in cross-shard receipt verification and pre-staking quorum checks to create unauthorized ONE.
Harmony rolled the network back to a point before the forged supply appeared and had already raised migration as one possible response.
That episode came years after the 2022 Horizon bridge theft, when attackers stole assets worth roughly $100 million. U.S. authorities later attributed that attack to North Korea-linked groups.
Taken together, those incidents help explain why Harmony is treating a clean break as more realistic than another repair cycle.
The official community discussion, titled “Voluntary winding down,” is where validators and users are now testing the details.
A blockchain cannot be switched off like an ordinary website. Wallet balances, delegated stakes, contract positions and exchange custody all require different handling.
Harmony is not proposing to disappear. Its second announcement describes a new system built around creators, reusable prompts and assets, and “governors” who would replace some validator functions.
— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) September 6, 2026
The concept begins with a small group of creators publishing open prompts and source assets. Fans would remix those originals, and AI agents would generate larger numbers of derivative clips.
Harmony believes advertising could support the resulting economy if it reaches a large enough audience.
The organization has set aside about $1.37 million for validators who wind down their nodes, sign a transition agreement, keep their stake and move into governor roles. That pool gives operators a financial bridge, but it does not settle the larger question: whether a community assembled around a Layer 1 blockchain will follow the project into a fundamentally different product.
For ONE holders, the immediate issue is operational. Anyone using Harmony-based liquidity pools, multisig wallets or applications should verify the project’s instructions directly.
They need to understand what must be moved before the proposed final block. Assets outside the snapshot or migration rules could be left behind.
The proposal now gives the community a direct choice: stretch a wounded chain through another recovery, or close it and carry ONE into a different future.
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