Akash Network, a marketplace for renting cloud computing, has asked its token holders to approve a move from its own blockchain to Solana. Proposal 346 went to an on-chain vote at 15:02 UTC on Monday and closes at 15:02 UTC on 2 Nov.
Akash runs on akashnet-2, a so-called sovereign chain: a blockchain built with the Cosmos toolkit that has its own validators, about 100 of them, staking AKT to secure it. The proposal would end that arrangement.
A yes vote approves the migration plan and lets AKT launch as an SPL token, Solana’s token standard, once two independent audits of the token and the migration portal are complete. The proposal says that should be two to three weeks after it passes; a blog post by the Akash team says two weeks.
Migration would be one-way. AKT sent through the portal arrives on Solana one-for-one and leaves circulation on the old chain, and the portal stays open for two years. “There is no path back,” the proposal says.
The vote does not set a cutover date or move the marketplace. Live leases, staking and governance carry on as before until a separate cutover proposal passes, after audits, a provider testnet of at least six weeks and a 14-day rehearsal.
By 20:57 UTC on Monday, about 37.7 million AKT had voted yes and about 0.66 million no, or about 98% in favour, according to the chain’s tally. Turnout was about 43% of staked AKT, above the 33.4% quorum. The tally can still change before voting closes.
Why it matters: Akash would be the latest project to give up its own chain. The team says it pays the full cost of a sovereign chain, including its own forks of core Cosmos software, without using its powers, while its fees on Solana would come to about 0.075 SOL a day for the whole marketplace.
Sovereignty is being repriced in both directions
The Akash team weighed seven options against 15 hard requirements before choosing Solana over an existing Ethereum layer 2, the proposal says. It points to Helium and Render, two other networks that rent out physical infrastructure and already settle on Solana. The Solana Foundation has offered engineering, audit and fee support, though the plan does not depend on it.
The costs are spelled out too. Staking rewards and old-chain inflation end at cutover, and validators lose their role and income at the chain’s halt, 90 days later. Akash also loses native IBC, the Cosmos bridge standard, and live slashing, the penalty for misbehaving validators, which is still in Solana governance.
The Cosmos ecosystem is shrinking around it. Noble, the stablecoin chain, left Cosmos in March, the Akash post notes.
Other projects lean the other way. StarkWare has made the case for an independent Starknet layer 1, and last week Starknet stakers backed post-quantum research tied to that idea. Any move to its own chain would need another vote.
For Solana, the move would add a working compute marketplace shortly after Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade cut its finality times.
The proposal also warns that phishing is the top threat: there will be one official portal domain, announced through Akash’s own channels.
AKT traded at $0.6689, up 2.7% over 24 hours, as of 20:57 UTC on 26 Oct, according to CoinGecko. Voting on Proposal 346 closes at 15:02 UTC on 2 Nov.
Related: Osmosis ends OSMO inflation after a governance vote
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.