Harmony Proposes Ditching Layer-1 Blockchain, Migrating One Token

Harmony has proposed shutting down its Layer-1 blockchain and migrating its native ONE token to Ethereum as an ERC-20 asset. The project made the announcement on X, stating that the threats from state actors and AI agents are too great.

The shutdown would take a final snapshot of ONE balances and issue matching ERC-20 tokens to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum. This would cover tokens held in wallets, staking positions, validator rewards, and centralized exchanges.

ONE reached its peak price of around 38 cents in October 2021 and had more than $1 billion in deposits by January 2022. However, the network was drained of nearly $100 million in June 2022 due to an attack attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, causing ONE's price to fall by up to 99%.

If the shutdown proceeds, the emissions used to reward validators would be redirected towards funding Harmony's 'Remix Economy for AI Video' business. This is a subscription service where creators publish prompts and assets that people and AI agents can reuse to generate new video clips.