A blockchain project is proposing to shut down the chain it built. Harmony wants to sunset its layer-1 blockchain, meaning it would stop running the independent network that processes its own transactions, and move its ONE token to Ethereum ($ETH) instead. The proposal comes weeks after an exploit that led to plans to discard 109,000 transactions.
What the proposal covers
Layer-1 and layer-2 describe how blockchains relate to each other. A layer-1, in plain terms, is a standalone chain that validates its own transactions and maintains its own record. Harmony built one. Sunsetting it would mean closing down that independent infrastructure, with ONE, the network's native token, moving to Ethereum's chain going forward.
What was announced is a proposal, not a finalized plan. In crypto governance, a proposal is a formal suggestion put to stakeholders for consideration. Whether the migration proceeds, and on what terms, depends on what comes next. For anyone holding ONE, approval would mean the token moves from a chain Harmony controls to one it does not.
The exploit and the 109,000 transactions
The proposal did not arrive without context. Weeks before it was put forward, an exploit hit the network. An exploit is an attack that takes advantage of a vulnerability in a system to access or redirect funds. The response to that attack included plans to discard 109,000 transactions, meaning nearly 110,000 individual records of activity on the chain would be removed or reversed.
Discarding transactions is not a routine step. It means treating part of the chain's recorded history as invalid, which calls into question the integrity of the ledger that blockchain networks are built on. That context gives the migration proposal a different character than a standard upgrade would carry.
What migrating ONE to Ethereum would look like in practice is not detailed in the proposal. The mechanics, the timeline, and what current token holders would receive are open questions. Moving to Ethereum means accepting the rules and security of a network Harmony does not control, in exchange for giving up independence over how the chain runs.
The 109,000 transactions under plans to be discarded are the most concrete measure of the exploit's reach.