Gnosis Chain has started voting on a proposal that would shift the network from operating as a standalone Layer 1 to becoming the first rollup in the Ethereum Economic Zone, or EEZ. The proposal, known as GIP-153, would rebase Gnosis Chain onto Ethereum while preserving the existing chain, addresses, and xDai as the gas token.
The move would mark one of the first practical implementations of the EEZ idea, a model introduced earlier this year to make Ethereum and its rollups work together more like a single economic environment. Voting is under way, and while early support is strong, the plan still depends on governance approval and further engineering work.
A vote to change Gnosis Chain’s role
Under GIP-153, Gnosis Chain would change its strategic direction rather than launch as an entirely new network. The proposal describes a rebasing process in which the current chain remains in place, with users keeping the same addresses and balances instead of going through a traditional account migration.
If approved, xDai would continue to be used for gas. The proposal also says that assets, pools, and oracles on mainnet would become reachable through a single atomic call, reflecting the broader goal of closer integration with Ethereum.
What the Ethereum Economic Zone is meant to do
The EEZ is being developed by Gnosis and ZisK and is funded by the Ethereum Foundation as shared public infrastructure. Its aim is to give Ethereum Layer 1 and rollups synchronous composability, meaning a contract on one chain could call a contract on another chain and receive a result within the same atomic transaction.
That approach is meant to avoid the need for bridging in cases where applications need cross-chain interactions to complete as one operation. In the context of Gnosis Chain, the proposal presents the rebase as a first concrete step from the EEZ concept toward deployment.
How validation and incentives would change
The proposal would also alter how the network is secured. Gnosis Chain’s existing validator set would be sunset, and Ethereum validators would take over validation responsibilities as part of the move onto Ethereum.
At the same time, the current staking subsidy funded by the GnosisDAO treasury would end. In its place, the network would move to a fee-capture model tied to actual usage, shifting economic support away from treasury subsidies and toward transaction-driven revenue.
Timeline, support, and remaining work
The rollout is expected to happen in phases rather than all at once. According to the proposal, a first deployment could arrive as early as December 2026 and would deliver roughly 80% of the targeted synchronous composability while representing about 40% to 50% of the total engineering effort. Full completion is anticipated in the following year.
At the time described in the source article, voting support stood at roughly 98% in favor, although quorum was still building. Even if tokenholders approve the measure, Gnosis engineers would still need to resolve sequencing decentralization and other technical issues before the full plan is in place.
The next confirmed milestone is the outcome of the GIP-153 vote. If it passes, the project would move from governance approval into phased implementation, giving the EEZ its first live test case on a production chain.
Source: www.bankless.com