Sophon sets November 25 deadline for asset withdrawals before mainnet shutdown

Sophon has set November 25, 2026, as the final deadline for users to withdraw assets, including SOPH, ETH, and USDC, prior to shutting down its Layer-2 mainnet on November 30, 2026. Citing annual operational costs of $3.4 million, Sophon is pivoting away from its standalone chain, which raised $70 million, to deploy consumer finance and AI applications on Coinbase’s Base network. The move reflects broader L2 economic pressures, following Abstract's planned December shutdown.

Shutdown schedule and withdrawal deadlines

• ▪Sophon instructed users to withdraw Sophon (SOPH), Ether (ETH), and USDC (USDC) from Sophon farms and claim outstanding staking and Guardian rewards prior to the November 25, 2026 cutoff
• ▪Sophon announced on October 19, 2026, a November 25, 2026 final deadline for users to withdraw assets before Sophon's key infrastructure, related websites, network bridges, and RPC nodes are retired
• ▪Sophon scheduled its Layer-2 mainnet to shut down on November 30, 2026, following an initial decision in June 2026 that disabled new deposits on June 25, 2026

Operational costs and chain activity

• ▪Sophon developers cited annual operational costs of approximately $3.4 million to maintain the standalone blockchain as the primary cause for shutdown, projecting approximately $3 million in annual operational savings
• ▪Sophon experienced minimal activity on its blockchain after disabling new deposits on June 25, 2026

Migration to Base and new product plans

• ▪Sophon's first product following the company's migration to Base is Pyre, described by developers as a gamified neofinance application
• ▪Sophon is transitioning operations from zkSync's ZK Stack to Coinbase's Layer-2 network, Base, to focus on consumer finance and artificial intelligence applications

SOPH token utility changes and market status

• ▪The SOPH token maintains a fixed total supply of 10 billion tokens and traded at a market capitalization between $9 million and $10 million in October 2026
• ▪Sophon is replacing the SOPH token's gas and staking functions with a model that uses revenue from the company's Base applications to execute token buybacks and burns