Harmony has proposed shutting down its blockchain network on Sunday, saying threats from AI agents and state actors have become too great for the project to continue operating the chain.
The move arrives as the crypto industry deals with increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks tied to frontier AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra.
In a post on X, the Harmony Team wrote: “The threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great. 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.”
To reduce that risk, Harmony wants to migrate its ONE token to Ethereum and use newly issued tokens to fund a new ecosystem initiative called “The Remix Economy for AI Video.” Validators, which verify transactions on the network, could move into governance roles or join the AI-video business, according to the proposal.
How the ONE migration would work
Harmony launched in 2019 as a layer-1 blockchain built around proof-of-stake and sharding. Under that design, validators commit tokens to help secure the network, while sharding splits transactions into smaller groups that can run in parallel. The project has said the architecture was meant to address the blockchain trilemma by increasing capacity without giving up security or concentrating control.
According to Harmony, the migration would use a snapshot taken at the network’s final block to record ONE balances and determine each holder’s allocation of replacement tokens on Ethereum. The proposal says the process would cover wallets, staked tokens, validator rewards, smart contracts, and centralized exchanges.
Replacement tokens would be airdropped to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum. Delegated stakes and unclaimed rewards would go to individual governor vaults, and exchange listings would also shift to the new token.
The proposal says holders would not need to submit a claim. Still, users with assets inside smart contracts face a separate deadline.
The Harmony Team wrote: “Multisig safes, liquidity pools, and onchain apps cannot be migrated; users are urged to exit all smart contracts before September 10, 2026.”
Harmony also proposed paying eligible validators and their delegators from a $1.372 million pool in four quarterly installments. That payout would depend on validators retaining their stakes, signing an agreement, and serving as governors.
The team also said: “The ONE token’s total supply and emission rate will remain unchanged. Tokens issued through emissions will now be allocated to our new mission, ‘The Remix Economy for AI Video’, subject to governor feedback.”
AI-driven security concerns spread across crypto
The migration plan is the latest example of a blockchain network facing deeper scrutiny after security incidents.
In August, Harmony confirmed an exploit after an attacker created roughly 4 billion unauthorized ONE tokens. The team released a patch and said it was considering a rollback, which would reverse transactions by restoring an earlier version of the blockchain.
Harmony’s X post on Sunday also points to AI taking on a larger role in crypto security. Companies have reported suspected AI-assisted attacks, while developers are using AI systems to identify and fix vulnerabilities.
In July, Coldcard maker Coinkite said it suspected an attacker had used AI to find a flaw that made wallet keys easier to guess. The company said its own AI review had missed the issue. Coinkite overhauled its security in August after thefts exceeded $100 million.
After the Coldcard attack, developers formed the Bitcoin Red Team to look for vulnerabilities before attackers could exploit them. The group combines AI models, including Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, with human review to examine wallets, payment applications, and other Bitcoin software, then privately alerts developers when it finds flaws.
The team has grown to about 20 to 25 volunteers, according to pseudonymous member and developer Calle. He said the group had found no issues in Bitcoin’s underlying protocol.
“The reason why the Bitcoin Red Team exists right now is because we need to get ahead of the attackers as fast as possible,” Calle told Decrypt.