Farewell to Independent L1: Gnosis Chain to Transition to an Ethereum L2 in Spring 2027

Odaily reports that Gnosis has announced Gnosis Chain will cease operating as an independent L1 via a hard fork in spring 2027, transitioning into an Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) region settling to Ethereum and becoming the first general-purpose zone. At that time, contracts, balances, addresses, chain ID, and the Gas token xDAI will all remain unchanged, and developers will not need to redeploy; however, the validator set of approximately 200,000 independent validators will not be retained. Based on current DeFi TVL, Gnosis Chain will rank among the top ten Ethereum L2s after the transition and become the first L2 capable of synchronous composability with the mainnet. Gnosis states that operating as an independent L1 costs Gnosis DAO approximately $7 million to $10 million per year.