ZetaChain's Solana Migration Countdown Begins as It Prepares to Launch Financial AI Platform ZetaLabs

Less than a month now remains before ZetaChain's own Layer 1 shuts down.

On December 9, as the mainnet block height reaches 20,755,000, the existing Layer 1 will stop running and ZETA will migrate to Solana at a 1:1 ratio. Holders will then be able to claim the new SPL tokens through the official page, and staked assets will also be included in the migration automatically.

But the changes brought by this migration go far beyond that. The end of the independent public chain era is also the start of ZetaChain formally joining the Solana ecosystem. The second governance proposal, passed on November 7, also rearranged ZETA's supply structure and further clarified the product roadmap after Anuma's upgrade into ZetaLabs.

On one side, 55 million ZETA are about to be burned and the originally planned inflation mechanism canceled; on the other, the project is shifting its development focus to financial AI. ZetaChain is rebuilding a set of economic and business systems for its new stage.

Rebuilding ZETA's Token Supply: Canceling Inflation, Burning 55 Million Tokens

The first change the migration brings is an adjustment to ZETA's existing supply arrangements.

According to the officially announced plan, of ZETA's original maximum supply of 2.1 billion tokens, 210 million were originally dedicated to validator incentives, accounting for 10% of the initial supply. As of the migration snapshot, about 155 million had been released through block rewards, leaving roughly 55 million undistributed.

With the independent L1 ceasing operation, the original validator reward mechanism will also become a thing of the past. ZetaChain has decided not to release this portion of tokens into the market, but instead to burn them monthly from January to December 2027 in line with the original release pace, burning about 4.6 million per month.

At the same time, the 2.5% annual inflation mechanism that ZETA was scheduled to activate in the fourth year of mainnet operation will no longer be implemented. After migrating to Solana, the token will no longer be continuously minted through the original validator reward mechanism.

For tokens already allocated to investors and core contributors, ZetaChain has chosen to complete the final stage of unlocks according to the original plan.

Under the original tokenomics, Purchasers and Advisors received 336 million ZETA, 16% of total supply; Core Contributors received 472.5 million, or 22.5%, with the two parts totaling 808.5 million.

At present, about 94.4% of these two allocations has been unlocked. The remaining portions will release their final batches of tokens on December 1 and January 1, 2027 respectively; once unlocked, the established unlock plans for both allocations will come to a complete end, with no related new unlocks afterward.

Other allocations held by the foundation have different arrangements. The ZetaChain Foundation has also committed not to sell newly released tokens from the User Growth Pool, Ecosystem Growth Fund, Protocol Treasury and Liquidity Incentives in 2027.

As a result, ZetaChain's adjustment this time actually involves supply management at three levels: burning the validator rewards not yet distributed, completing the established unlocks for investors and core contributors, and restricting the foundation from selling newly released tokens in 2027.

This means that with the independent L1 closing, ZETA's original issuance and unlock arrangements will gradually wind down, and the pace of future supply releases will change markedly.

After the Migration Starts, How Do ZETA Holders Complete Their Asset Conversion?

In addition to clarifying the token supply adjustment plan, the second proposal also finalized the specific process for migrating ZETA from the ZetaChain native network to Solana.

Under the proposal, ZetaChain will take an asset snapshot at block height 20,755,000, expected to be reached on December 9, 2026. At that point, the ZetaChain native L1 will stop operating, validator nodes will shut down, and the original network will not be restarted.

After the snapshot is completed, ZetaChain will issue a native SPL version of ZETA on Solana at a 1:1 exchange ratio, keeping the token name and ticker unchanged. The total issuance of the new token will correspond to the native ZETA balances recorded in the snapshot; once issuance is complete, the mint authority will be revoked to ensure that ZETA on Solana cannot be further minted.

• For ordinary holders, this migration does not require a third-party cross-chain bridge. ZetaChain will provide asset claim services through the official migration app and the ZetaHub page. After the migration portal opens on December 9, users only need to connect the wallet holding their tokens and sign a message containing a Solana receiving address to claim the corresponding amount of SPL tokens. The entire process requires no fees and no need to hold SOL in advance, and the minimum claim balance per address is 10 ZETA.
• For staked assets, users likewise do not need to unstake in advance. The snapshot will automatically record ordinary balances, delegated staking balances, balances in the process of unstaking, and unclaimed rewards, and count the corresponding amounts into the migration balance. Note that staking rewards will stop accruing at the snapshot height.
• For users who hold ZETA tokens on centralized exchanges, each trading platform will be responsible for completing the token conversion, with no self-claim needed; the specific conversion timing and arrangements are subject to each exchange's announcement.

Beyond native ZETA, other cross-chain assets users hold on ZetaChain also have corresponding arrangements. Assets still in ZRC-20 form at the snapshot can be returned to their original blockchains via ZetaHub starting December 9. This mechanism covers 9 original networks, with a minimum claim amount of $5 per asset.

However, users holding wrapped ZETA or liquidity pool shares need to handle those assets in advance. Because these assets sit in smart contracts or liquidity pools and cannot be claimed by signing directly from an ordinary wallet address, users need to unwrap or exit the pools before the snapshot and transfer the corresponding assets back to their personal wallets.

On migration security, ZetaChain said the Solana token distribution program and the migration claim service are undergoing an independent security audit by Hacken, with the report to be published before the migration page opens. The project will also disclose the snapshot data and verification files, token mint records and program verification information for external checking of asset amounts before and after the migration.

At the same time, the existing ZetaScan explorer will continue to provide historical transaction lookup services, and the project will retain a read-only archive node at least until October 31, 2027, so users can consult historical records.

It should be specifically noted that this migration only concerns ZETA on the ZetaChain native network. The ERC-20 version previously issued on Ethereum is unaffected and will continue to exist in its original form.

From Market Tracking to On-Chain Memory, ZetaLabs Builds a Crypto-Native Financial Intelligence Assistant

As the original public chain gradually exits, ZetaChain's business focus for the next stage will concentrate on its AI product ZetaLabs. However, compared with Anuma, which previously mainly targeted general-purpose AI interaction, ZetaLabs further focuses its product positioning on the crypto market, hoping to integrate real-time market information, users' own on-chain activity and AI models into a single workflow.

As early as February 2026, ZetaChain launched Anuma Chat, which through multi-model aggregation and a private memory layer lets users switch between different AI models while retaining personal preferences and historical context. ZetaLabs builds on this technical foundation and adds features closer to the crypto market. According to the official roadmap, the platform plans to launch Chat, Radar, Bloom and ZETA Dashboard on December 9.

Among them, Radar and Bloom are the two important components that distinguish ZetaLabs from ordinary AI chat tools — Radar is responsible for tracking the market, while Bloom lets the AI understand the user's own on-chain activity.

Radar provides a real-time, personalized market information feed covering areas such as cryptocurrencies, perpetual futures, prediction markets, stocks and commodities. Users can get market developments according to their own areas of interest and then ask follow-up questions through Chat. Compared with having to re-describe the research subject and background to a general-purpose AI each time, this approach lets users research directly around the markets they follow continuously.

Bloom further extends the AI's analytical scope from public markets to users' own on-chain activity. After users connect a Solana wallet, Bloom can build private memory around their on-chain transactions, letting users ask about their own trades in natural language. In other words, the AI no longer needs to understand only the price movement of a certain token; it can also provide relevant context based on the user's own on-chain activity.

For example, when users want to review their recent transactions on Solana, they can ask the AI directly about their wallet activity, rather than opening a block explorer transaction by transaction, looking up transaction hashes and then organizing the trading records themselves.

This design also lays a foundation for deeper transaction analysis later on. According to the roadmap for the first quarter of 2027, ZetaChain also plans to launch a Lens feature: users simply input an on-chain transaction to learn what specifically happened, which operations were involved and how much it cost.

If Radar solves the problem of scattered market information, then what Bloom and Lens try to solve is the difficulty of understanding on-chain transaction information and of organizing one's own trading history.

Another emphasis running through ZetaLabs' product design is user privacy.

Crypto investors using AI for analysis usually have to involve information such as wallet addresses, transaction records and holdings. Once combined with AI chat records, this information forms a fairly complete personal financial profile. And when using ordinary AI chat tools, users typically have to submit prompts and related context to the model provider for processing.

ZetaChain hopes to change this model through a Private Memory Layer. This infrastructure is designed to encrypt users' chats, research and memories, with users holding the keys, so that ZetaChain itself cannot read these contents. AI models will only receive the information needed to answer the current question, rather than directly accessing the user's complete history.

On this basis, ZetaChain also plans to launch Zeta Intelligence and Zeta MCP in the first quarter of 2027. The former will combine users' private memory to provide deeper financial research and decision support; the latter will allow third-party applications to call ZetaLabs' tools, accessing the corresponding memories only after the user authorizes it.

For the crypto market, this design also points to a longer-term direction: as AI agents begin to take on market information gathering, transaction analysis and other financial tasks, they need not only model capabilities but also user-authorized data, continuous personal context and payment mechanisms.

ZetaChain's goal is to integrate these capabilities into a single product system through private memory, open interfaces and payment standards such as x402.

ZETA Rebuilds Its Value Support

Compared with the product roadmap, changes in how ZETA is used in the new business may be the part of this proposal more worth watching.

The original ZetaChain was an independent Layer 1 public chain, with ZETA serving functions such as network gas payments, validator staking and rewards. With the L1 ceasing operation, this economic model will also exit. After migrating to Solana, network transaction fees will be paid in SOL, and ZETA will need to establish new demand at the application layer.

According to the new white paper, ZETA's currently specified uses mainly cover three aspects.

• The first is AI service payments. Users can use ZETA to pay for AI services in ZetaLabs and receive a certain discount, while unlocking more reports and product features.
• The second is Premium membership. Starting in the first quarter of 2027, users can lock ZETA to obtain ZetaLabs Premium access, gaining deeper market research reports and higher service quotas. Per the official description, locked tokens still belong to the user, and only the user's own wallet can withdraw them.
• The third is product governance. Users can use ZETA to vote on product direction, for example deciding which markets, data sources and AI models ZetaLabs supports.

Compared with the previously discussed ZETA Access mechanism of locking tokens in exchange for AI usage credits, the new white paper specifies the token's uses as service discounts, Premium access and product direction voting.

In addition, per the official description, all users can receive a daily free usage quota, while additional AI calls and research services can be paid for with ZETA, USDC or a credit card. This means ZETA is not a prerequisite for using the product, but rather a payment and access method that provides discounts and specific benefits.

From this perspective, ZetaChain has not set ZETA as the sole gateway into ZetaLabs; instead, it hopes to build richer application scenarios for the token through payment discounts, Premium membership benefits and product governance. Ordinary users can experience the service via USDC or a credit card, and as usage needs deepen, ZETA can offer more product benefits.

As features such as Radar, Lens, Zeta Intelligence and MCP roll out, ZetaLabs is also expected to gradually develop from an AI assistant into a service platform connecting financial data, market research and third-party AI agents.

For ZetaChain, migrating to Solana means the end of operating an independent public chain, while ZetaLabs carries the business exploration of the next stage. How to turn the AI technical capabilities accumulated previously into sustained product demand and further expand ZETA's range of uses in the ecosystem will be the key things to watch in the next phase of this transformation.

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