On Sunday, Harmony revealed its intention to shut down its Layer 1 blockchain and put forward a plan to shift its native ONE token over to Ethereum, pointing to persistent security risks.
“The dangers presented by nation-state actors and AI agents are simply too severe,” Harmony stated in a post on X announcement. “Ever since our mainnet debut back in 2019, our community has shown remarkable resilience through various attacks and shifts — but the moment has arrived to fully retire the Harmony network.”
Harmony mentioned it would assist validators in moving into fresh responsibilities within the platform’s suggested new initiative centered around a “remix economy” for artificial intelligence video creators.
According to Harmony, this new operational model focuses on a tight-knit community of AI video producers who release open-ended prompts and assets. Fans of these creators would then fork, or “remix,” those original pieces, while AI agents would expand each fork into numerous additional clips.
“We plan to kickstart this ecosystem alongside creators and operators who produce AI-generated videos,” Harmony remarked. “Advertising has the potential to yield tens of millions in revenue from a million active users.”
Validators have the option to halt node operations starting September 10, as highlighted by Harmony. The organization also indicated that a fund totaling $1.37 million has been set aside to reward validators who wind down their nodes, execute an agreement, preserve their stakes, and step into “governor” roles for the upcoming initiative.
Migrating ONE
Harmony has suggested executing an airdrop of brand-new ONE tokens on Ethereum alongside shifting exchange listings, completely eliminating any required steps from token holders, delegators, or validators.
The network explained that it intends to capture a snapshot of tokens held within user wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts, and centralized exchanges at the final block. Newly minted tokens will subsequently be airdropped to identical wallet addresses on Ethereum, Harmony added.
“Delegated stakes and unclaimed rewards will be distributed via airdrop directly into individual governor vaults,” Harmony stated. “Multisig safes, liquidity pools, and decentralized applications cannot undergo migration; participants are strongly advised to withdraw from all smart contracts prior to September 10, 2026.”
The token’s overall circulating supply and emission schedule will remain untouched, whereas newly created tokens will be directed toward Harmony’s fresh project, according to the network. The value of ONE dropped by 3.86% over the preceding 24 hours, trading at $0.00073.
ONE Price | The Block
Exploits
Last month, Harmony experienced a major exploit in which an unauthorized actor reportedly minted 4 billion ONE tokens. A subsequent forensic analysis conducted by Harmony revealed that the perpetrator actually generated in excess of 3 trillion ONE tokens across six distinct transactions.
The security breach originated from a vulnerability inside the cross-shard receipt verification system, which permitted valid receipts to be processed multiple times and enabled attackers to fabricate new ONE tokens without a corresponding debit elsewhere. Furthermore, the development crew highlighted a flaw associated with the pre-staking quorum-checking mechanism.
In the wake of this security breach, Harmony reverted its network back to a state preceding the exploit where the fraudulent tokens had not yet been created. At that time, the team noted they were evaluating the migration of the ONE token as a viable path forward.
The security breach in August was not the initial major incident to impact Harmony. Back in June 2022, the project’s Horizon cross-chain bridge suffered an exploit. Malicious actors drained digital assets valued at nearly $100 million, encompassing Ethereum and multiple stablecoins. Cybersecurity professionals tied the breach to a security compromise affecting the bridge’s multi-signature wallet. During the following year, the FBI officially attributed the offensive operation to North Korean state-backed hacking syndicates known as the Lazarus Group and APT 38.
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/web3/2026-09-06-harmony-sunset-network-413635.
