Moonbeam Network, one of the earliest and most prominent parachains on Polkadot, announced on July 3 that it will fully migrate its GLMR token to Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2. The move effectively ends Moonbeam’s four-year relationship with Polkadot and repositions the project within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Holders have until July 31 to bridge their GLMR tokens 1:1 to a new ERC-20 version on Base through a dedicated migration portal. Centralized exchanges are expected to handle the swap automatically for tokens held in custody.
What’s actually happening here
Moonbeam launched in January 2022 as the first parachain on Polkadot. Its entire selling point was giving Ethereum Virtual Machine developers a home inside the Polkadot ecosystem, complete with staking, cross-chain compatibility, and familiar tooling.
Now it’s leaving. The project is rebranding around something called the Moonbeam Protocol, described as a decentralized network focused on AI agent communication and settlement for on-chain economies.
