Gnosis Chain Ditches Independence for Ethereum-ZK Rollup Integration
Gnosis Chain is planning to transform into an Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) ZK Rollup, according to a governance proposal submitted by Friederike Ernst and others. The proposal states that Gnosis Chain's current positioning as an independent Layer 1 has failed due to its overlap with Ethereum in terms of value proposition, but lacking the scale advantages and liquidity.
The proposal aims to address this issue by transforming Gnosis Chain into a ZK Rollup on the Ethereum mainnet. This will allow users to cross-chain call Ethereum contracts in a single transaction, a feature not currently available on other Layer 2s. The transformation is expected to take place between August and September, with the genesis block scheduled for January 2027.
As part of the transformation, Gnosis Chain validators will exit, and sequencing rights will be centrally managed by Gnosis Ltd. Original cross-chain validators will transform into Prover nodes, and GNO staking incentives will be replaced by fee capture from actual network activity. The specific token economic model is expected to be proposed in subsequent governance proposals.