GnosisDAO Approves Ethereum-Settled Rollup Plan, Freeing 27% of GNO Supply

3 min readPublished 21 Aug 2026

GnosisDAO voted to retire Gnosis Chain’s standalone validator set and turn the network into a rollup that settles directly to Ethereum. The proposal, GIP-153, passed comfortably, according to Cointelegraph, CryptoSlate and The Defiant — all three confirm the core mechanics of the shift, even though each surfaced different parts of what it means.

What passed, and by what margin

Cointelegraph reported the tally directly from a Gnosis Chain X post: 123,158 GNO in favor, 115 against and 151 abstaining, across 54 voters. Turnout reached 123,425 GNO, well above the 75,000 quorum required. No other outlet in this review published the vote breakdown; it rests solely on Cointelegraph’s citation of that post.

Under the approved plan, Gnosis Chain’s independent validator set would be retired, and the network would instead rely on Ethereum’s validators for settlement, becoming a Layer 2 rather than a Layer 1. The chain keeps its existing applications, balances and its native xDAI gas token through the transition, a point confirmed by Cointelegraph, CryptoSlate and The Defiant alike.

The Ethereum Economic Zone framework

The EEZ is a design for Ethereum-aligned rollups built by Gnosis and ZisK with funding from the Ethereum Foundation, Cointelegraph reported. The goal is to let smart contracts on different rollups execute together in the same transaction rather than routing value through bridges — Gnosis Chain would be the first production deployment of that model, per Cointelegraph. CryptoSlate described the same ambition in its own reporting, noting the design would let a Gnosis contract call an Ethereum contract and use the result atomically.

Cointelegraph cited Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s Feb. 3 X post arguing that existing Layer 2 designs need rethinking, in which he wrote that “we need a new path.” Cointelegraph also cited a May 28 report from Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, who wrote, “The EEZ will have the benefit of reducing the need for bridges (where hacks tend to occur) and increasing the usability of assets in EVM chains,” adding that both effects are likely to lead to greater activity in the Ethereum ecosystem. Both the Buterin and Kendrick material appear only in Cointelegraph’s account among the outlets reviewed here.

The tokenomics consequence only CryptoSlate reported

Neither Cointelegraph’s vote tally nor The Defiant’s summary addresses what happens to GNO once staking ends. CryptoSlate did: retiring the validator set would eventually unlock roughly 350,000 staked GNO, about 27% of circulating supply, returning it to liquid markets. CryptoSlate also reported that GIP-153 itself estimates the current treasury-funded validator reward model dilutes non-stakers by about 2.3% annually — a cost the DAO is trying to escape, not just a technical footnote.

CryptoSlate reported that GNO rallied 10% to roughly $136 around the vote, its highest level since May, according to the outlet’s own price data — a figure not corroborated elsewhere in this review. CryptoSlate framed the reaction as investor focus on deeper Ethereum integration outweighing concern over the coming supply unlock.

CryptoSlate also reported comments from Gnosis co-founder and CEO Martin Koeppelmann, who described the plan in part as: “Same block, no bridges.” That quote, along with CryptoSlate’s report that Aave, Spark, Fluid, CoW Swap, Safe and Centrifuge have committed to building in the environment, appears only in CryptoSlate’s account.

Where the coverage agrees — and where the gaps are

All three outlets agree on the essentials: GIP-153 passed, Gnosis Chain is moving from standalone Layer 1 to an Ethereum-settled rollup, the validator set is being retired, and xDAI stays as the gas token. None of the three outlets contradict each other on a hard number where they overlap.

The disagreement in this story is one of coverage, not conflicting figures. Cointelegraph alone has the vote tally and quorum math. CryptoSlate alone has the supply-unlock figure, the price move and the CEO comment. The Defiant’s coverage, per the summary available, confirms the transition and the xDAI detail but adds analysis of validator contraction and fee revenue challenges that this review could not independently verify beyond that summary.

CryptoSlate also flagged what the vote did not decide: GnosisDAO approved a direction, not funding or a finished technical design, and the mechanism to replace GNO’s staking-derived utility — fee sharing, buybacks, or something else — remains undecided, with a separate governance proposal expected later. CryptoSlate further noted Gnosis Ltd. is expected to run the sequencer initially, a centralization trade-off GIP-153 reportedly describes as deliberate.

What to watch

The launch window cited by Cointelegraph and CryptoSlate is late 2026 or early 2027, contingent on the required EEZ technology being ready. Beyond timing, the open questions are GNO’s post-staking revenue model, the pace of sequencer decentralization, and how markets absorb roughly 350,000 GNO becoming liquid once staking ends — none of which any outlet in this review has resolved.