According to a Gnosis Chain announcement, GnosisDAO approved GIP 153 on August 19, authorizing the transition of Gnosis Chain from a standalone layer one network into a ZK proven Ethereum Economic Zone rollup. The final vote recorded 123,158 GNO in favor, 115 GNO against and 151 GNO abstaining across 54 voters. Total participation reached 123,425 GNO, well above the required quorum of 75,000 GNO, with the proposal clearing the required quorum by nearly 65% overall. The governance approval has been the primary catalyst for GNO's recent price surge, with the token jumping 8% in the last 24 hours as markets responded positively to the transition news.
The 8% surge in GNO over the past 24 hours aligns closely with the governance news, with the token gaining approximately $9.04 per token from roughly $108.19 to $117.23. Market data shows 24-hour volume around $11.93 million and a market cap near $309 million, reflecting elevated trading interest for the mid-cap asset. Multiple trading-focused accounts on X have highlighted GNO as a top performer, with one noting the token is "getting some volume here" as price started moving higher. Technical analysis shows the breakout occurred after GNO broke above key resistance levels around $110 to $113, with traders publishing specific long setups targeting the low $120s. The intraday price action shows pullbacks followed by renewed buying, consistent with a breakout that attracts follow-through rather than a single wick.
As reported by Gnosis Chain, the initial EEZ deployment targets late 2026 or early 2027, depending on technology readiness. The transition will involve Gnosis Chain retiring its current validator set and replacing independent settlement with Ethereum-based security. Existing applications, account balances, contract addresses and the chain identifier are expected to remain unchanged, meaning users would not migrate to a separate blockchain. RPC endpoints could change, while the treatment of the network's dollar pegged gas token still requires a final decision. The technical implementation will not deliver every feature described in the longer-term design, with the first release using a centralized sequencer due to technical requirements and a forced inclusion system absent from the initial version.
According to the approved proposal, Gnosis Chain currently operates its own proof of stake consensus system and validator set, but following the transition, the network will publish proofs and settle transactions on Ethereum, relying on Ethereum validators for settlement security. The existing Gnosis validator set will eventually be retired, ending the staking subsidy paid from the GnosisDAO treasury. Network fees would replace the subsidy as the system's economic base, with the proposal noting that fee revenue currently covers only a small part of the chain's security costs. Traders likely interpreted the L2 pivot as an upgrade in Gnosis Chain's long-term relevance and a signal that GNO's token economics will be redesigned around Ethereum-aligned value capture instead of inflationary staking subsidies.
The Ethereum Economic Zone is a rollup framework developed by Gnosis and ZisK with Ethereum Foundation funding, designed to allow participating networks access Ethereum contracts and liquidity synchronously without requiring conventional bridges for every interaction. As reported, Gnosis Chain is expected to become the first production EEZ instance, with the framework introduced to address Ethereum's fragmented layer two ecosystem where applications deployed across separate rollups maintain different liquidity pools and infrastructure. The planned network would maintain two second blocks compared with Ethereum's roughly 12 second slots, with only blocks aligned with an Ethereum slot able to synchronously interact with mainnet. The transition represents a significant shift from Gnosis Chain's current sovereign, independent Layer 1 status to a highly Ethereum-aligned Layer 2 solution.
According to Gnosis cofounder and proposal author Friederike Ernst, the first EEZ release will not deliver every feature described in the longer-term design, with the initial network using a centralized sequencer due to technical requirements. A forced inclusion system will also be absent from the first release, with Ernst stating that forced inclusion would be added as soon as possible. The proposal estimates the first version would provide 80% of intended synchronous composability functionality while requiring 40% to 50% of full engineering work, with a complete EEZ specification expected during 2027. GIP 153 requested no DAO funding, with further proposals potentially needed if implementation requires treasury resources or changes to specific protocol parameters.
