Key Takeaways:
- The Secret Network has announced that it is planning to shift its SCRT token from the Cosmos to Arbitrum on Sept. 1, 2026.
- The team reportedly referred to the liabilities of falling liquidity within cosmos, weaker infrastructure and security threats driven by Artificial Intelligence.
- Native and staked SCRT will be eligible for migration, and bridged and contract-held tokens will be ineligible.
Secret Network intends to make a significant change in the entire ecosystem and to shift the native SCRT token from Cosmos to Arbitrum. The transfer will remove SCRT’s core dominance from Cosmos and place it within one of Ethereum’s biggest layer-two bountiful environments.
The plan is pending community approval but there has been a detailed migration process and time line proposed.
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SCRT to Launch as an ERC-20 Token
According to the proposal, a snapshot of eligible SCRT balances will take place on September 1, 2026. A new ERC-20 version of SCRT will then be issued on Arbitrum.
The snapshot will include native SCRT held in wallets and staked SCRT balances. Users do not need to unstake before the migration.
But, liquidity pools (LP) liquidity stores, Bridged LPs, sSCRT and other contract-held balances will not be included. The team stressed that these holdings have to be converted back to native or staked SCRT prior to the snapshot in order to maintain their eligibility.
Holders Urged to Prepare Early
Secret Network also urged users with IBC tokens to return to their respective chains before Secret Network’s migration, including ATOM, OSMO and USDC assets.
The claiming will be snapshot based, that is, users will not have to transfer anything before the deadline. Balances that are qualified will be claimable later on a dedicated claiming mechanism on Arbitrum.
AI Security Risks Drive the Decision
One of the strongest arguments behind the proposal is security.
The team cited an example of the risks of ageing blockchain infrastructure with a recent Axelar-Secret bridge incident. The vulnerability didn’t exist if you were using a native SCRT, but it did in association with other older integrations and maintenance issues.
Secret Network said progress in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) now makes it easier to spot vulnerabilities in legacy code. With the ongoing sophistication of AI tools, smaller ecosystems with fewer developer contributions may become more vulnerable to security challenges.
Why Arbitrum Was Chosen
In addition to the security problem, Secret Network notes that the Cosmos ecosystem is not as conductive of liquidity and developer momentum as it used to be.
Arbitrum, on the other hand, offers better DeFi liquidity as well as wallet and exchange support, and a larger builder base. The team believes these advantages can help improve SCRT’s long-term accessibility and adoption.
The proposal also confirms that SCRT Labs will end official support for the Cosmos-based Secret Network on September 1, 2026. The next phases of development will concentrate on certain confidential features, along with privacy in computation and verifiable off-chain execution, while Arbitrum becomes the token’s new home pending community approval for the migration.
