Sophon has officially established a strict November 25 deadline for users to withdraw their digital assets ahead of the complete shutdown of its mainnet. The move comes several months after the project’s developers announced that they would be abandoning their standalone Ethereum layer-2 blockchain in favor of pivoting operations toward Base.
In an announcement issued on Monday, Sophon confirmed that it will begin systematically shutting down its core infrastructure and associated websites on November 25. The project team warned that any tokens or funds left on the Sophon Chain after this critical date risk becoming permanently inaccessible to their owners, underscoring the urgency for community members to act immediately.
The development team has strongly urged all users to withdraw their holdings—including Sophon (SOPH), Ether (ETH), USDC, and various other tokens—as soon as possible. Furthermore, participants have been instructed to claim any outstanding staking rewards or Guardian rewards accumulated through the network before the infrastructure goes dark.
The impending shutdown marks a definitive end to Sophon’s initial vision as an independent, zero-knowledge-powered layer-2 network. The ecosystem was originally launched with a heavy emphasis on consumer-facing applications, ranging from interactive gaming and entertainment to artificial intelligence initiatives. However, market realities quickly shifted the project’s trajectory.
Back in June, developers candidly admitted that the ongoing financial and operational costs required to maintain a standalone blockchain no longer justified its benefits. Faced with these high overheads and changing industry dynamics, the team outlined a strategic pivot to shift their primary focus toward consumer finance and artificial intelligence applications built directly on Base, Coinbase’s popular Ethereum layer-2 network.
The decision by Sophon’s leadership to wind down its proprietary chain reflects a broader, rapidly growing trend across the broader cryptocurrency sector. Maintaining a distinct layer-2 network demands immense resources, continuous security oversight, and significant liquidity incentives—pressures that have become increasingly difficult for mid-tier application-specific chains to sustain in a hyper-competitive market.
This reality was starkly highlighted by a similar announcement from Abstract, another prominent consumer-focused Ethereum layer-2 network. Developed by Igloo, the parent company behind the well-known Pudgy Penguins non-fungible token ecosystem, Abstract revealed on October 6 that it would permanently close its doors on December 15. That decision followed massive financial strain, with Igloo reportedly losing tens of millions of dollars while attempting to support and subsidize the network’s operations.
The parallels between Sophon and Abstract underscore the economic hurdles facing specialized consumer chains. Sophon itself secured substantial backing during its initial rollout. Cointelegraph previously reported that Sophon successfully raised an impressive $60 million through a heavily publicized node sale in 2024. That successful capital raise came on the heels of a separate, earlier funding round that brought in an additional $10 million, giving the project a formidable war chest at its inception. Despite this significant initial capitalization, the long-term expenditure required to keep an independent layer-2 infrastructure viable ultimately forced the team to rethink their architectural approach and migrate to a more established, scalable environment like Base.
As the November 25 deadline rapidly approaches, the immediate priority for the Sophon community remains the secure retrieval of funds and the finalization of pending reward claims. With key infrastructure set to be permanently decommissioned, users have only a limited window to safeguard their assets and transition alongside the developers to the project’s next operational chapter.
