Secret Network wants to pack up and move to Arbitrum, and the reason is more unsettling than a typical chain migration story. SCRT Labs, the team behind the privacy-focused blockchain, has proposed shifting the $SCRT token from its current Cosmos-based Layer 1 to Ethereum’s Arbitrum Layer 2, warning that aging integration code is increasingly vulnerable to exploits, particularly those powered by AI tools.
“The security risk is the part we take most seriously,” the team said, pointing to outdated code and the growing threat of AI-assisted attacks as primary motivators for the move.
A bridge hack and a wake-up call
The proposal didn’t materialize out of thin air. In June 2026, the Axelar-Secret IBC bridge suffered a breach that drained approximately $4.7 million through an infinite mint vulnerability. SCRT Labs has framed the Axelar incident as symptomatic of a broader problem: legacy integration code that was written for a different era and is now being probed by increasingly sophisticated tools, including AI-powered exploit finders.
The team’s proposed solution is essentially a controlled demolition of the old chain followed by a fresh start on Arbitrum. A snapshot date of September 1, 2026 will determine eligibility for the token conversion. Only native and staked SCRT held in self-custodied wallets at the time of the snapshot will qualify for conversion to the new ERC-20 version of SCRT on Arbitrum.
