By Why Is Harmony Shutting Down Its Layer 1 Network?
Harmony has proposed shutting down its seven-year-old Layer 1 blockchain and migrating its ONE token to Ethereum, an unusual retreat for a network that once competed with Ethereum and Solana for users and decentralized finance activity.
The proposal, announced Sunday, would retire the Harmony mainnet and redirect the project toward an AI video business that it calls the “Remix Economy.” Harmony said security risks from state-backed attackers and increasingly capable AI agents had made defending the existing blockchain too difficult.
“The threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great,” Harmony said. “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.”
The plan is non-binding and Harmony said its details remain subject to change. The project has also not said whether the shutdown will be submitted through its existing validator governance system.
If implemented, validators could begin shutting down nodes from Sept. 10. Harmony has allocated about $1.37 million to compensate validators that close their nodes, sign an agreement, retain their stakes and move into governance roles connected with the new AI initiative.
How Would The ONE Migration To Ethereum Work?
Harmony proposes taking a final snapshot of ONE balances and issuing matching ERC-20 tokens to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum. The snapshot would include tokens held directly in wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchanges.
Holders, delegators and validators would not need to submit individual claims. Harmony said it intends to publish the Ethereum contract, snapshot calculations and airdrop scripts for public review.
Delegated stakes and unclaimed rewards would be moved into individual governor vaults. However, multisig safes, liquidity pools and other onchain applications cannot be transferred automatically.
Harmony is therefore urging users to exit smart contracts before Sept. 10, 2026, creating an immediate operational issue for anyone still holding assets inside decentralized applications on the network.
The total supply and emission rate of ONE would remain unchanged. The economic purpose of future issuance would change substantially, however. Instead of paying validators to secure Harmony’s blockchain, newly issued ONE would help fund the proposed AI video business.
Investor Takeaway
ONE holders are facing more than a blockchain migration. Harmony is proposing to replace the network that originally gave the token its economic purpose with an unrelated AI video business, leaving token value increasingly dependent on whether that new model can attract users and generate revenue.
How Did Harmony Reach The Point Of Closing Its Blockchain?
Harmony was once one of the better-funded Ethereum alternatives. ONE reached roughly $0.38 in October 2021, while deposits across the network exceeded $1 billion by January 2022. DeFi Kingdoms alone accounted for about $747 million.
That growth was followed by a series of security failures.
Harmony’s Horizon bridge lost nearly $100 million in June 2022 after attackers compromised its multi-signature security structure. U.S. authorities later attributed the attack to North Korean state-backed groups Lazarus Group and APT38.
The network suffered another severe exploit on Aug. 11, 2026. An attacker abused flaws in Harmony’s cross-shard receipt verification system, allowing valid transaction receipts to be processed repeatedly and creating ONE without a corresponding debit elsewhere.
Harmony’s reconstruction found that more than three trillion unauthorized ONE tokens were created across six transactions. The network responded by rolling its blockchain back to a point before the exploit, permanently removing more than 109,000 subsequent transactions from its history.
That rollback restored the ledger to its pre-attack state but also exposed a deeper problem for users: Harmony was willing to rewrite transaction history to preserve the network after an exploit.
ONE traded around $0.00073 following the latest announcement, down more than 99% from its 2021 peak.
What Happens To ONE After Harmony Becomes An AI Business?
Harmony’s proposed replacement business is built around AI-generated video rather than blockchain infrastructure. A small group of creators would publish prompts and digital assets that users could remix, while AI agents would generate additional clips from those variations.
Harmony said advertising could eventually produce tens of millions of dollars from one million users, but the project has not provided evidence that such a user base or revenue stream currently exists.
The change therefore leaves ONE investors with a very different asset from the one they originally purchased. The token would remain transferable on Ethereum, but the validator economy, native blockchain activity and Layer 1 utility that previously supported ONE would disappear.
Exchange migration will also matter. Harmony said it plans to coordinate the move without requiring action from exchange users, but individual platforms will still determine whether they continue supporting ONE after the Ethereum conversion.
For holders, the immediate issues are the Sept. 10 smart-contract deadline, the terms of the final snapshot and whether exchanges support the migration. Longer term, the question is whether an Ethereum-based ONE token can retain economic relevance once the Harmony blockchain itself no longer exists.