ZetaChain Holders Approve Plan to Shut Layer 1 and Move…

Published: September 20, 2026 – 21:00 UTC

Why Is ZetaChain Abandoning Its Own Blockchain?

ZetaChain token holders have approved a proposal to retire the project's Layer 1 blockchain and move ZETA to Solana, effectively ending the standalone network that was originally built to connect assets and applications across competing blockchains.Proposal 68 closed Sunday with 99.4% of votes in favor, while 0.3% voted against and another 0.3% abstained. Participation reached 58%, comfortably above the 40% quorum required for the vote.The decision represents a sharp change in direction for a project that raised $27 million in 2023 from investors including Blockchain.com and Jane Street Capital to develop an interoperability-focused Layer 1 capable of connecting networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.ZetaChain launched its mainnet in early 2024 and later broadened its ambitions toward artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, ZetaChain 2.0 was introduced around an AI and Web3 strategy, but developers have now concluded that maintaining a separate blockchain is unnecessary for the project's main application.The team instead plans to concentrate on Anuma, a private multi-model AI application launched in February. ZetaChain says Anuma has more than 300,000 users and has processed over one million requests across 35 AI models.

What Happens to ZETA Holders?

The successful vote does not immediately shut down ZetaChain or move existing tokens. A second governance proposal is still required before the actual migration can begin.Under the approved framework, native ZETA will be converted one-for-one into a Solana SPL token. The ZETA ticker and total token supply will remain unchanged, while existing vesting schedules will continue under their current terms.ZETA held on Ethereum and BNB Chain is outside the scope of Proposal 68.The next proposal is expected to establish the balance snapshot block, the final ZetaChain shutdown block, token-claim procedures and instructions for withdrawing assets held across connected chains. The team said that vote will not begin until exchanges confirm how they intend to support the conversion.That makes exchange coordination one of the most important outstanding issues for holders. A governance vote can authorize the migration, but centralized platforms still need to determine how customer balances, deposits and withdrawals will be handled during the transition.Staking also continues for now. ZetaChain has not finalized how staking or token rewards will operate once ZETA becomes a Solana-native asset.

Investor Takeaway

The 99.4% vote settles the strategic direction but not the migration itself. ZETA holders still need details on the snapshot, exchange conversions, staking and the final shutdown date, making the second governance proposal the more operationally important vote.

Did Cosmos Security Costs Help Drive the Decision?

ZetaChain's proposal points directly to the burden of maintaining a Cosmos SDK-based blockchain. Every upstream vulnerability and software patch can require coordination across an independent validator network, creating engineering work that disappears if the project instead relies on Solana for execution and consensus.The timing is notable. In August, attackers exploited a shared Cosmos EVM vulnerability across six blockchains and converted stolen tokens into approximately $5.7 million of other assets. The incident exposed the difficulty of distributing and implementing emergency fixes across independent Cosmos networks.ZetaChain was not among the six chains hit in that attack. Its migration proposal nevertheless cited the August security patch as an example of the continuing maintenance burden and argued that AI-assisted security research will make vulnerabilities easier to discover.Moving to Solana effectively trades control of an independent validator network for reliance on an established Layer 1. For ZetaChain, that means engineering resources can be directed toward Anuma, its private memory technology and ZETA's utility rather than maintaining consensus infrastructure.

Is ZetaChain Becoming an AI Project Rather Than a Blockchain Project?

The migration makes that change much clearer. ZetaChain's original pitch centered on interoperability: developers could build applications capable of using assets and data from otherwise disconnected blockchains. The new strategy treats blockchain infrastructure as something the project can outsource.Anuma is now the center of the plan. Its encrypted memory system is designed to preserve user context across different AI models, while users can lock ZETA in return for credits used inside the application.Solana also offers an existing ecosystem around AI-agent payments and high-frequency, low-value transactions. Solana has increasingly been promoted as infrastructure for autonomous AI agents, giving ZetaChain access to an ecosystem it would otherwise have to attract to its own chain.The larger question is what remains of ZETA's value proposition once the network it originally secured disappears. Gas fees, validator staking and Layer 1 governance were core functions of the native token. On Solana, the project will need Anuma usage and other AI applications to replace those network-level sources of utility.ZetaChain is therefore not simply changing blockchains. It is testing whether an application and token can outlive the Layer 1 they were originally built to support.

Source: FinanceFeeds