Harmony Proposes Sunsetting Network and Moving ONE to Ethereum for AI Video Pivot

Harmony has proposed fully sunsetting its blockchain after seven years and migrating its native ONE token to Ethereum, with holders receiving new ONE through a final-block snapshot and airdrop. Token emissions would be redirected to a new business the team calls the “Remix Economy for AI Video.”

Under the proposal, the snapshot would cover ONE held in user wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchanges. New tokens would be airdropped to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum without a separate claim process, while delegated stakes and unclaimed rewards would go to individual governor vaults.

The transition creates a Sept. 10 deadline — Thursday — for users with ONE deployed onchain. Harmony said multisig safes, liquidity pools and apps cannot be migrated, and urged users to exit all smart contracts before that date. Validators may begin shutting down nodes on Sept. 10.

Harmony attributed the proposal to security risks, saying “the threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great.” The notice describes the proposal as non-binding and says all plans are subject to change.

What Harmony Is Pivoting To

Harmony said newly issued tokens would fund a video platform in which creators publish open prompts and assets that others can fork, with AI agents generating additional clips from each remix. “Tokens issued through emissions will now be allocated to our new mission,” the team said, adding that it would take “governor feedback.”

The team said it would “bootstrap this economy with creators and operators who make AI videos,” and that “advertising could generate tens of millions of dollars from a million users.” Harmony did not publish user numbers or a launch date for the platform.

Harmony said ONE’s total supply and emission rate would remain unchanged after the move. The project also said it would publish the ERC-20 contract, governor-vault contract, snapshot calculations and airdrop scripts for public audit.

Exchange Gap Narrowed to 6.58B ONE

The proposal lands while Harmony is still reconciling the August incident that prompted it. In a separate update, Harmony said the exchange-related ONE gap tied to the Aug. 11 incident had been adjusted to 6.581 billion from about 10.234 billion.

Harmony said the revision followed reconciliation with Binance, Binance.US, Gate, KuCoin, MEXC and OKX, and came from matching 295 cross-exchange transfers totaling roughly 3.493 billion ONE and accounting for circular transfers. The team said the reduction “does not equate to newly recovered funds,” and that Binance data remained provisional while some Gate and OKX figures awaited verification.

Harmony said exchanges had frozen ONE balances and proceeds linked to the attacker, and that “the current priority is to coordinate the resumption of ONE deposits, withdrawals, and trading as soon as possible.” Each exchange would announce its own timing.

The incident prompted Harmony to patch two verification paths after reports of unauthorized ONE issuance. As The Defiant reported, Harmony asked exchanges to block four wallets, paused its bridge and evaluated rollback options. Harmony did not confirm onchain account Juiceberg’s claim that four billion unauthorized ONE had been created.

Current Network Footprint

Harmony’s staking dashboard showed about 3.04 billion ONE staked across the network, with an effective median stake of 6.83 million ONE. The chain had $146,337 in decentralized finance total value locked and $4,611 in 24-hour DEX volume, according to DefiLlama, which lists the chain as deprecated. Chain fees over the same period were $2.35.

ONE traded at about $0.00071, down 1.3% over 24 hours and 2.3% over the week, for a market capitalization near $10.6 million, according to CoinGecko. The token reached $0.379 in October 2021.

Validator Terms

For validators, Harmony set aside a $1.372 million transition pool, which it said equals the network-wide rewards issued during the year before the Aug. 11 incident. Harmony said validators who shut down on time, sign an agreement, retain their stakes and serve as governors in its new initiative would receive compensation in four quarterly installments.