Harmony Protocol is winding down its blockchain and moving to Ethereum, saying the project is no longer comfortable with the risks it faces on its current network. In a post on X on Sunday, the team said the decision was driven by the view that the 「threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great」 and that ONE would be safer on Ethereum.
That does not settle the security question. Ethereum has also been the site of a large number of incidents in recent months, which leaves open whether Harmony will actually be better protected after the move.
Shutdown follows August exploit and long decline
Harmony launched in 2019. On August 11, the protocol was exploited in an incident that resulted in the 「unauthorized minting」 of 3 trillion native ONE tokens. The team later rolled the chain back, restoring the network to its state before the hack.
ONE fell sharply right after the exploit and has lost more than 40% over the past month.
The network had already gone through a major breach before this. In 2022, Harmony’s Horizon bridge suffered a $100 million hack, part of a year in which multiple bridges lost nine-figure sums. Earlier that same year, Harmony held more than $1 billion in total value locked. That figure now stands at just $150,000.
Migration will use a snapshot, but contract-held tokens are excluded
According to the announcement, the migration will be based on a snapshot, with user balances airdropped to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum.
Tokens deposited in smart contracts will not be migrated. Users holding funds there were given three days to withdraw them.
At the same time that it sunsets the Harmony network and shifts to Ethereum, the project also appears to be changing direction. Harmony is presenting itself as a play on the 「remix economy for AI video」 and said advertising revenue 「could generate tens of millions of dollars from a million users.」 The migration notice also told existing Harmony validators to consider new roles as 「governors, AI video operators or affiliates.」
Ethereum has faced heavy incident volume in 2026
Harmony’s chosen destination has had its own security problems. Blockchain security firm CertiK said in a recent report that 344 incidents took place in the first half of 2026. Of those, 153 happened on Ethereum, or about 44% of the total.
The rise in exploits this year has been linked by some to the spread of more powerful AI models. Back in June, the crypto community watched the release of Anthropic’s Fable closely before it became clear that the model had been restricted to avoid answering cybersecurity-related requests.
On September 7, X user Wazz wrote: 「If you're wondering how this chart looks like for Crypto. These are my analytics from 200+ full investigations into onchain hacks/exploits since 2025. It accelerated significantly since January.」
Base-layer security does not remove application risk
Protos noted that, at the protocol level, Ethereum is about as safe as blockchains get. Other networks, though, have recently seen exploits that hit their structural layer.
Beyond Harmony’s own case, a bug recently caused disruption and losses across at least four chains that used a vulnerable Cosmos EVM module. On Sunday, Blockstream’s Liquid Network was drained of 4,000 bitcoin, worth around $320 million by the report’s estimate, though most of the funds have since been returned. In late August, an exploit on Core DAO caused $5.5 million in validator rewards to be issued ahead of schedule.
The broader point is narrower than a chain-versus-chain debate. When a project runs on a comparatively secure base layer such as Ethereum, safety still depends on the quality of that project’s own code. Whether Harmony’s new AI video effort succeeds or fails will be determined by the team itself, regardless of where it is hosted.