Original reporting: November 12, 2026, 15:00 (UTC+8). The migration dates and product launches below were plans at the time of publication, not confirmed outcomes.
ZetaChain planned to shut down its independent Layer 1 at block 20,755,000, expected on December 9, 2026, and migrate native ZETA balances to a Solana SPL token at a 1:1 ratio. A second governance proposal, passed on November 7, also revised ZETA’s supply arrangements and set out a roadmap for ZetaLabs, the project’s planned crypto-focused AI product.
The central change is economic as well as technical: ZETA would cease to serve as gas and a validator-reward token on ZetaChain’s own network. On Solana, transaction fees would instead be paid in SOL, leaving ZETA’s proposed utility tied to ZetaLabs services and governance.
What changes in ZETA’s supply?
Of ZETA’s original 2.1 billion maximum supply, 210 million tokens were allocated to validator incentives. The reported plan said approximately 155 million would have been distributed as block rewards by the migration snapshot. Rather than distribute the remaining roughly 55 million, ZetaChain planned to burn them monthly from January through December 2027, following the original release schedule—about 4.6 million per month. The previously planned 2.5% annual inflation mechanism, which was due to begin in the mainnet’s fourth year, would also be cancelled.
Previously allocated tokens follow a different schedule. Purchasers and advisers were allocated 336 million ZETA, while core contributors were allocated 472.5 million. According to the report, approximately 94.4% of these allocations had unlocked; their final releases were scheduled for December 1, 2026, and January 1, 2027, respectively. The ZetaChain Foundation also committed not to sell newly released tokens from the User Growth Pool, Ecosystem Growth Fund, Protocol Treasury or Liquidity Incentives during 2027. A commitment not to sell is distinct from a cancellation of those releases.
How was the migration designed to work?
The proposal called for a snapshot at block 20,755,000, after which the native Layer 1 and its validators would stop operating. ZetaChain planned to issue the Solana token against recorded native ZETA balances and revoke mint authority after issuance. Holders would claim through the official migration process and ZetaHub by signing a message specifying a Solana receiving address. The stated minimum was 10 ZETA per address, with no claim fee or advance SOL balance required.
The snapshot was intended to include ordinary balances, delegated stake, unstaking balances and unclaimed rewards; staking rewards would stop accruing at the snapshot block. Exchanges would handle conversion for ZETA held on their platforms, subject to each exchange’s arrangements.
Other assets required different treatment. Holders of ZRC-20 cross-chain assets were to be able to request their return to their original chains through ZetaHub from December 9, across nine supported origin networks, subject to a $5 minimum per asset. Holders of wrapped ZETA or liquidity-pool positions needed to unwrap or withdraw before the snapshot so the assets would sit in a wallet able to sign a claim. Existing ERC-20 ZETA on Ethereum was not part of this native-network migration.
At the time of the report, ZetaChain said Hacken was independently auditing the Solana distribution program and claim service, with a report to be published before claims opened. It also planned to publish snapshot data, verification files, mint records and program-verification information. ZetaScan was to remain available for historical searches, with read-only archive nodes retained until at least October 31, 2027. These were stated plans and assurances, not audit findings presented in the source.
The application-layer bet
ZetaLabs builds on Anuma Chat, launched in February 2026 with access to multiple AI models and a private-memory layer. The roadmap scheduled Chat, a market-information feed called Radar, a Solana-wallet activity feature called Bloom, and a ZETA Dashboard for December 9. For the first quarter of 2027, it listed Lens, intended to explain individual on-chain transactions, alongside Zeta Intelligence and Zeta MCP.
The project describes its Private Memory Layer as encrypting users’ chats, research and memory under user-held keys, while giving AI models only the information needed for a particular response. Those privacy properties are design claims in the supplied reporting; the source does not establish how they perform in practice.
ZETA’s proposed application uses include discounted payment for AI services, access to Premium features by locking tokens from the first quarter of 2027, and votes on product choices such as supported markets, data sources and AI models. The project said locked tokens would remain under users’ control. It also planned a daily free allowance and payment for additional services by ZETA, USDC or credit card. ZETA was therefore not proposed as a requirement for basic product access. Whether these benefits generate sustained token demand remains unresolved in the source.
Source: panewslab.com (originally published 2026-11-12 15:00 UTC+8)
