Akash Migrates 300 Million Tokens From Cosmos to Solana in Major Shift
Akash, the decentralized compute marketplace that emerged from the Cosmos ecosystem, is abandoning its sovereign chain and moving its token and protocol to Solana. Governance Proposal 346, launched on October 26, had drawn 98.42% support as of October 27, with turnout above 50%, well past quorum. Voting remains open until November 2, but founder Greg Osuri has publicly confirmed the migration is final.
For a long-running project rooted in Cosmos, giving up the akashnet2 chain is a strategic cut-loss decision. The appchain narrative once offered differentiation. Under a focused compute business model, it now imposes direct financial and operational costs.
The Akash team laid out the economics in an official blog post. About 100 validators stake a large amount of AKT, but that capital exists mainly to secure consensus. It brings no direct business benefit to buyers or sellers in the compute marketplace. The core team must also maintain forked versions of cosmossdk and CometBFT and coordinate network-wide node upgrades. As a pure compute rental marketplace, Akash does not need deep customization of its order and settlement layers.
Through the AEP79 proposal launched in 2025, the team weighed retaining the sovereign chain, moving to an Ethereum L2, or migrating to Solana mainnet. Final comparisons showed that a native Solana program would cost the entire compute market about 0.075 SOL per day in network fees, only a few dollars. By giving up control of the consensus mechanism, Akash can remove millions of dollars in locked capital and development costs and focus resources on winning real customers in AI compute.
The migration path is deliberately one-way. Within two to three weeks after Proposal 346 is approved, audited AKT will launch on Solana as a native SPL token. A one-way migration portal will stay open for two years. Holders who move AKT from Cosmos to Solana at a 1:1 rate with six decimal places cannot reverse the transaction.
The phased design has drawn objections from some legacy chain maintainers. The node cosmosrescue, with 0.63% of voting power, voted against the proposal. Its concern points to a timing mismatch: holders are asked to migrate as soon as the one-way gate opens, while the official cutover of the compute market code still depends on another vote months later. Rules for unmigrated tokens after the old chain is shut down, and the new chain emission curve, remain unresolved during that window.
For the roughly 100 validators on the old chain, the clock is running. Ninety days after the compute market ultimately switches, the old chain will halt permanently. Validator roles and staking rewards will end.
Akash is a case study in the wider restructuring of legacy Web3 infrastructure. In its 2026 assessment, the team explicitly ruled out staying in Cosmos because of liquidity and clustering effects. Cosmos has seen meaningful capital and project outflows. Noble, a native stablecoin chain, left in March. DATA Network and other projects have moved to Sui, citing the cost of maintaining independent chains.
Solana has absorbed leading DePIN networks. Helium shut down its own chain and completed its migration in 2023. Render and io.net later launched on Solana, and the group has a combined valuation above $3.5 billion. For compute projects such as Akash that require frequent billing, Solana offers a $15 billion stablecoin supply and more than 2.2 million active paying users per day. Those are essential clearing channels for institutional capital such as BlackRock BUIDL and for expanding enterprise customers.
Legacy transformations carry the weight of history. Akash is leaving its former home with nearly 300 million tokens, a sign that business logic is maturing. When real growth is the priority, a shared public chain base with low marginal costs and deep stablecoin liquidity offers more survival value than an expensive independent chain.
AKT holders should note the following. The underlying switch will fundamentally change the circulation path and staking rules for nearly 300 million AKT. The proposal sets out these mechanisms and restrictions.
1:1 one-way exchange. Within two to three weeks after approval, the official cross-chain portal will launch with a two-year window. AKT will be issued on Solana as an SPL token, with the ticker and six decimal places unchanged. The migration is one-way and irreversible. AKT sent to Solana will be removed from Cosmos circulation and cannot be returned under any circumstances.
Unstaking with a 21-day lockup. Stakers must first initiate unstaking, which takes 21 days. The official portal supports initiating unstaking and queuing the cross-chain transfer in a single transaction. Until the official compute market cutover, staked assets remaining on the old chain will continue to earn rewards.
Zero friction and custody differences. Users of self-custody wallets must connect addresses at both ends through the official portal to complete cross-chain transfers. The official platform will provide a fee-sponsored relayer, so users do not need to buy SOL in advance. Centralized exchanges will handle the process automatically in the background, with no manual action required.
Security warning. The official team has said phishing sites targeting cross-chain authorization pose the highest risk. Users must wait for the official channel to announce the sole Portal domain name.
