Harmony Plans to Shut Down Layer 1, Move ONE Token to Ethereum
Harmony is preparing to wind down its Layer 1 blockchain and move its native ONE token to Ethereum, arguing that growing security risks have made continuing to operate the network increasingly difficult.
The project announced the plan Sunday, pointing to threats from state-backed actors and AI-driven agents. Harmony said its community had managed to navigate multiple attacks and major changes since the mainnet launched in 2019, but the latest security concerns had pushed the project toward a full shutdown.
As part of the transition, validators will be encouraged to move into new roles within a proposed initiative focused on what Harmony calls a “remix economy” built around AI-generated video content.
The concept would involve a relatively small number of AI video creators publishing prompts and digital assets that fans could reuse and modify. AI agents would then generate additional videos from those remixed versions. Harmony estimates that advertising revenue from a user base of around 1 million people could eventually generate tens of millions of dollars.
Validators can begin shutting down their nodes from Sept. 10. Harmony has also allocated $1.37 million for validators that agree to close their nodes, maintain their stakes and move into “governor” positions within the new initiative.
ONE Migration to Ethereum
Harmony has proposed issuing new ONE tokens on Ethereum and transferring exchange listings as part of the migration. The project says holders, delegators and validators would not need to take action for the basic token migration.
At the final block, Harmony plans to record ONE balances across personal wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchanges. Equivalent tokens would then be airdropped to the corresponding wallet addresses on Ethereum.
Some assets and positions will not be transferable, however. Harmony said multisignature wallets, liquidity pools and onchain applications cannot be migrated. Users interacting with those contracts have therefore been advised to withdraw their assets before Sept. 10, 2026.
Delegated staking positions and unclaimed rewards would instead be distributed to individual governor vaults under the proposed new system.
Harmony also said the overall ONE supply and emission schedule will remain unchanged. Newly issued tokens would be directed toward supporting the project's new initiative.
ONE was trading around $0.00073 after falling 3.86% over the previous 24 hours.
Another Security Crisis
The shutdown plan comes shortly after a major exploit that hit Harmony last month.
The attacker initially was reported to have minted around 4 billion unauthorized ONE tokens. Harmony later reconstructed the transactions and said the attacker had actually created more than 3 trillion ONE across six transactions.
According to Harmony, the exploit exploited a weakness in cross-shard receipt verification. The flaw allowed legitimate receipts to be processed repeatedly, enabling attackers to create ONE without a corresponding deduction elsewhere. The project also identified a separate issue involving its pre-staking quorum-checking system.
Harmony subsequently rolled the network back to a point before the unauthorized tokens were created. At the time, the team said a potential migration of ONE was among the options under consideration.
The latest incident adds to a longer list of security problems for the project.
In June 2022, Harmony's Horizon bridge was hacked, with attackers stealing nearly $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies, including Ether and stablecoins. Investigators linked the incident to a compromise of the bridge's multisignature wallet.
A year later, the FBI said the attack was carried out by North Korean state-backed hacking groups, including Lazarus Group and APT 38.
With another major exploit now behind it, Harmony is choosing a different path: retire its blockchain, move ONE to Ethereum and redirect its resources toward an AI-focused creator economy.