Harmony proposed retiring its seven-year-old layer-1 blockchain and migrating ONE to Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, with validators able to begin shutting down nodes from Sept. 10. The non-binding plan follows an August exploit that forged more than 3 trillion ONE tokens and includes a $1.372 million compensation pool for validators transitioning to governance roles in a new AI video project.
Harmony is preparing to wind down its independent chain after seven years, proposing to reissue ONE as an ERC-20 asset on Ethereum while validators begin powering off nodes from Sept. 10.
The non-binding proposal, published Sunday, calls for a final network snapshot, issuance of ONE on Ethereum, and migration of exchange listings to the new token. Harmony has not specified a date for the final block or confirmed whether the plan will go through its validator-led governance process, which requires 51 percent of total stake weight to participate and 66.7 percent support after a seven-day introduction period and 14-day vote.
At the final block, Harmony plans to record ONE held in wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchanges, then distribute replacement tokens to the same addresses on Ethereum with no claim process required. Total supply and emission rate would remain unchanged. Multisig safes, liquidity pools and onchain applications cannot be transferred, and Harmony has urged users to exit all smart contracts before Sept. 10.
Node operators can begin shutting down from that date, with $1.372 million set aside for validators and delegators who stop on time, sign an agreement, retain their stakes and continue as governors. Compensation would be distributed over four quarters, covering the difference in emission rewards between a validator's last block and the network's final block.
The proposed shutdown follows an August security incident that forced Harmony to consider reversing days of blockchain activity after unauthorized ONE entered circulation. A reconstruction by the project identified more than 3 trillion ONE created across six transactions, traced to a flaw in cross-shard receipt verification that allowed valid receipts to be processed more than once.
By Aug. 17, Harmony proposed rolling back its two shards to checkpoints recorded at 11:25:37 p.m. UTC on Aug. 11, erasing 141,628 consecutive shard 0 blocks containing 109,126 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions. One wallet connected to the forged mint attempted 534 transfers of 5 billion ONE each within 106 seconds; 477 succeeded, moving 2.385 trillion ONE.
The August exploit was not Harmony's first security failure. In December 2023, a staking logic flaw minted 146.28 million ONE across 74 delegator addresses before an emergency hard fork. In June 2022, attackers stole close to $100 million from the Horizon cross-chain bridge after compromising its control keys — a breach the FBI later attributed to North Korea-linked Lazarus Group and APT38.
Harmony has proposed moving its work toward an AI video "remix economy" once the blockchain is retired. Under the model, a small group of video creators would publish prompts and assets that fans could fork or remix, with AI agents generating additional clips from the resulting branches. Operators would handle video generation, distribution and content moderation, with staking and service uptime tied to rewards.
The project floated a $10 monthly subscription, with promoters receiving a continuing 30 percent commission from subscriptions they refer. Harmony said operators could generate up to $1 million in combined first-year revenue, subject to staking and uptime requirements, and that advertising could generate tens of millions of dollars at 1 million users. Future ONE emissions would be directed toward the initiative, though the team said arrangements remain subject to governor feedback.
ONE trades near $0.0012 with a market capitalization around $18 million, down roughly 99.7 percent from its all-time high of $0.38. The token bottomed near $0.0007 immediately after the August exploit before recovering part of the drop. The migration leaves holders with a token whose value now rests on an unbuilt product, and Harmony has promised to publish the token contract, snapshot calculations and airdrop scripts for public audit — the next real test of whether balances map cleanly or strand edge cases.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
