Summary
- Harmony developers have suggested closing down the blockchain and migrating ONE holdings to Ethereum, citing mounting expenses and challenges in protecting the infrastructure against state-backed entities and AI bots.
- Under this non-binding roadmap, Harmony would capture a final ledger state and automatically distribute equivalent ERC-20 tokens, while validators could receive payouts for terminating nodes and backing a fresh artificial intelligence video project.
- The initiative follows significant security breaches, featuring a $100 million bridge exploit in 2022 and an August security incident that triggered a controversial blockchain rollback wiping out more than 109,000 transactions.
Engineers behind the Harmony network have put forward a suggestion to terminate the seven-year-old blockchain and transition its native ONE token to Ethereum, arguing that the expense and complexity of safeguarding the ecosystem from increasingly sophisticated adversaries have grown excessive.
“The threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great,” the project wrote on X on Sunday. “Since our mainnet launch in 2019, our community has been resilient through attacks and changes, but it is time to fully sunset the Harmony network.”
Shutting down a functional blockchain is an uncommon occurrence. Networks that fail typically experience a gradual decline in active users and developers until nothing remains operational, rather than issuing a formal closure announcement accompanied by a transition blueprint.
This recommendation remains entirely non-binding and includes a disclaimer noting that all outlined strategies are subject to revision.
Harmony has not clarified whether the shutdown will undergo the formal governance mechanism typically utilized by the network for major decisions, wherein elected validators — participants who secure the network utilizing their hardware resources — put forth proposals and voting weight is determined by staked amounts.
A One-Time Ethereum Rival
Harmony attracted substantial capital during its zenith, gaining widespread attention for its ultra-fast and low-cost architecture positioned as a competitor to Ethereum and alternative challengers like Solana. The native asset ONE attained approximately 38 cents in October 2021, and by January 2022 the ecosystem secured over one billion dollars in user capital, with the gaming application DeFi Kingdoms alone contributing $747 million of that total.
Nevertheless, difficulties emerged during the preceding bull cycle after Harmony’s Horizon bridge was drained of roughly $100 million in June 2022, an intrusion that federal investigators later linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group and APT38. That incident triggered a sharp decline in public perception regarding the token and the network, resulting in ONE valuations dropping as much as 99% from their peak in the ensuing months.
More recently on August 11, an adversary exploited a vulnerability in the mechanism used by the network to validate cross-shard transactions across its parallel processing segments.
The hacker generated over three trillion unauthorized ONE tokens across six separate transactions. In response, Harmony executed a controversial blockchain rollback to a block height prior to the breach, permanently erasing more than 109,000 transactions from the protocol’s historical record.
What Happens Now
According to the updated blueprint, Harmony plans to capture a final snapshot of all ONE balances and distribute corresponding ERC-20 tokens to identical wallet addresses on the Ethereum network. This ledger snapshot will encompass ONE held in standard wallets, staking pools, validator incentives, and centralized exchanges.
Token holders will not be required to manually claim their replacement assets. Harmony announced it intends to publish the Ethereum smart contract code, snapshot computations, and airdrop distribution scripts for public auditing.
However, this introduces the most unconventional element of the strategy. The ONE token was originally created partly to incentivize validators for maintaining Harmony’s decentralized ledger. Should the blockchain cease to exist, those future token allocations would instead finance a new initiative designated by Harmony as the “Remix Economy for AI Video.”
Read More: Harmony’s ONE dives 40% after an attack appears to mint tokens equal to quarter of supply
Harmony characterizes this commercial venture as a subscription platform where content creators publish prompts and digital media assets that can be utilized by individuals and artificial intelligence agents to synthesize brand-new video footage.
Validators may begin disconnecting their nodes starting at 7 a.m. Pacific time on September 10. Harmony has allocated $1.372 million — matching the total validator distributions issued throughout the twelve months preceding the August security breach — to reimburse operators who terminate operations punctually, execute a formal agreement, maintain their staked capital, and assume governance responsibilities within the upcoming enterprise.
The ONE token changed hands near $0.00073 on Monday, reflecting a decrease of nearly 4% over a 24-hour window.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/09/07/once-hyped-ethereum-rival-harmony-wants-to-shut-its-blockchain-over-ai-threats.
