ZetaChain Votes 99.4 Percent to Abandon Its Own Layer 1 and Move ZETA to Solana

ZetaChain holders have voted overwhelmingly to abandon the project’s own Layer 1 blockchain and migrate its native ZETA token to Solana, with governance portal ZetaHub showing 99.4 percent support for Proposal 68 shortly before voting closed at 14:58 UTC on Sept. 20.

The result, first reported by crypto.news, marks one of the most decisive community votes ever recorded for a full chain migration and clears the way for ZetaChain to eventually shut down its independent network entirely.

Participation reached roughly 58 percent of voting power, comfortably above the 40 percent quorum the proposal required. Only 0.3 percent of votes opposed the plan, with another 0.3 percent abstaining, after a standard 72-hour voting window that followed the Sept. 17 announcement.

The vote does not itself move any tokens. What it approves is the direction: ZETA will become a native Solana SPL token through a one-for-one conversion, with the ticker and total token supply unchanged. Each address will receive an equivalent balance based on a final migration snapshot, and no new tokens will be created.

One technical adjustment involves decimal places. Native ZETA currently uses 18 decimals, while the proposed Solana token would use nine. Balances would convert from 18 to nine decimals, and any amount below the supported precision would be rounded down. Existing vesting schedules continue through their original dates.

ZetaChain explicitly ruled out keeping the Solana asset as a wrapped representation backed by tokens locked on the old chain. A bridge would require the original chain to keep running, and the plan calls for that chain to eventually shut down.

A second proposal will handle the mechanics

The heavy lifting comes later. Core contributors must now prepare a second governance proposal containing the actual migration mechanism: the block height used for the balance snapshot, the connected-chain withdrawal window, the chain halt schedule, the Solana claim process and the exchange conversion period.

Exchange coordination is a gating factor. The governance text says Proposal 2 will not be submitted until platforms that list ZETA have confirmed their token-swap procedures, because exchanges require advance notice before committing to migrations.

Until that second vote passes, nothing changes operationally. Validators keep validating, users can continue staking, and balances remain untouched. Staking rewards will keep flowing until the shutdown time specified in Proposal 2. What staking looks like after the move to Solana remains, in the project’s own words, under active exploration.

ZetaChain plans to publish the snapshot export and checksum so balances can be independently reproduced, and an archive node and explorer will remain accessible after shutdown. Programs or contracts holding user ZETA during the migration will undergo audits before handling tokens.

ZETA already issued on Ethereum and BNB Chain sits outside the scope of the current proposal, which concerns native ZETA and the fate of the Layer 1 itself.

Anuma and the AI pivot

The migration is about more than a token. Anuma, ZetaChain’s private multi-model AI application, and the encrypted Private Memory Layer behind it will move to Solana as part of the project’s new technical focus.

The company says more than 300,000 people have joined Anuma since February, with the application passing one million requests across 35 AI models. Published data showed 301,195 users through Sept. 16. Anuma uses encrypted memory designed to stay under a user’s control as they move between AI models, with closed model providers receiving only the context required for individual requests. ZETA already has a utility role inside the app: users can lock ZETA to receive credits and spend them on AI usage, with locked tokens removed from circulating supply.

The vote follows a turbulent stretch for the project, which had earlier announced a 231 million USD Bitcoin-backed investment to expand its treasury.

Why a chain would vote to dissolve itself

Voluntary L1 shutdowns remain rare. Linera, a microchains startup backed by a16z, wound down this month after its token sale raised only about 900,000 USD, below the minimum. ZetaChain’s case is different: it is a going concern choosing Solana as its canonical network rather than winding down entirely.

The logic echoes a broader 2026 trend in which appchains and smaller Layer 1s conclude that bootstrapping validator sets, liquidity and developer mindshare is more expensive than deploying where users already are. Solana has been the chief beneficiary, absorbing teams and tokens from struggling ecosystems as its own activity metrics hit new highs. SOL traded near 108.38 USD at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko data.

For ZETA holders, the immediate practical takeaway is patience. Balances do not need to be moved today, staking continues, and the conversion will be one-for-one with no supply inflation. The risks sit further out: the migration requires a second vote, audited handling of tokens held in contracts, exchange cooperation and a clean snapshot. Any stumble in that sequence, and a 99.4 percent mandate becomes a stress test of process rather than sentiment.

What the vote undeniably settles is strategic direction. ZetaChain’s experiment as an independent Layer 1 is over. The chain that spent years marketing itself as the home of omnichain interoperability has decided its future is brighter as one more SPL token on someone else’s network.