ZetaChain (ZETA)

ZetaChain is a proof-of-stake Layer 1 blockchain, launched on 1 February 2024, on which one smart contract could hold and move assets on Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana and other chains without wrapping or a bridge (whitepaper). Its holders govern it on-chain with $ZETA, and in two votes in September and November 2026 they decided to shut the chain down and move $ZETA to Solana as a native token, one for one under the same ticker. The chain halts at block 20,755,000, expected around 9 December 2026, and is not restarted (Proposal 70).

It is the second network in this directory to leave its own chain for Solana by holder vote, after Helium in 2023.

How did ZetaChain vote to shut down its own chain?

In two proposals, the first deciding the direction and the second the terms. Proposal 68, "Migrate ZETA to Solana", ran from 17 to 20 September 2026 and passed with 99.4% of votes in favour: about 264m $ZETA Yes against 0.7m No and 0.8m Abstain (on-chain tally). It approved making $ZETA an SPL token on Solana and winding down the L1 once holders and connected-chain assets had moved, and said a second proposal would set the dates and that nothing would move before it passed.

The team's case, in the announcement of 17 September and the proposal text, is that running its own chain no longer helped it build its product, Anuma, a private AI app that had passed 300,000 users since February 2026 and whose successor on Solana is ZetaLabs. As a Cosmos SDK chain, ZetaChain had to coordinate every upstream security patch across dozens of independent validators.

Proposal 70, "Migrate ZETA to Solana: Mechanism, Dates, and Holder Protections", was submitted on 4 November and closed on 7 November 2026. It passed with about 313.6m $ZETA voting Yes and 420 $ZETA voting No (on-chain tally), roughly 83% of the 376m $ZETA staked on 8 November (staking pool). Under the Cosmos SDK's rules a delegator who does not vote inherits their validator's vote; the Cosmos Hub page explains how that and the tally work.

What happens to $ZETA holders?

Proposal 70 sets the steps:

• Snapshot. At block 20,755,000 every balance is recorded per address, staked, unbonding and unclaimed rewards included, so nobody needs to unstake. The same block is the halt.
• Mint. The ZetaChain Foundation mints the snapshot total as an SPL token on Solana, part of it early for exchanges and the rest into a vault the migration program owns, then revokes the mint authority.
• Claim. From 9 December 2026 a holder signs a message at the ZetaHub migration portal naming a Solana wallet and receives the full snapshot balance, with no fee. The minimum is 10 $ZETA, and the path is one-way.

$ZETA held in smart contracts and pools cannot be claimed by a key, so holders are told to unwrap and exit pools before the snapshot. Exchanges convert their customers' balances on windows they announce themselves. The 600m $ZETA issued as an ERC-20 on Ethereum is unchanged, and the maximum supply stays 2.1bn less a burn (whitepaper).

What happens to validators and bridged assets?

Staking rewards stop at the snapshot block. About 55m $ZETA of the 210m set aside for validator rewards will not have been paid out by then; the Foundation burns it in twelve monthly instalments through 2027, and the 2.5% yearly issuance planned from the chain's fourth year never starts (Proposal 70).

Cross-chain transfers had already ended: inbound transfers were disabled in June 2026 and withdrawals closed on 1 July. Holders of bridged ZRC-20 tokens claim the underlying asset on its original chain from 9 December, except balances worth less than $5 per token and tokens held in pools or contract wallets. ZetaScan and a read-only archive node stay up until at least 31 October 2027.

How Caper approaches this

ZetaChain's holders could change everything by vote, the chain's own existence included, and a holder who voted No still moves to Solana on the same terms or does not move at all. A caper runs on Radix rather than a chain of its own, and a member who disagrees with where it is heading does not have to wait for a migration: any member who has voted can leave at any time with their fair share of the treasury. The exit rights page compares this with Moloch's ragequit, and winding down a DAO covers other DAOs that voted to close.