ICON, a veteran public blockchain that once dominated the ICO craze in 2017 and was hailed by the community as the "Ethereum of Korea," is about to officially enter history.
The ICON Foundation issued a major announcement today (May 25, 2026), confirming that the ICON network will be permanently shut down on December 31, 2026. At that time, all on-chain transactions will cease completely, and the network will switch to a "read-only" mode, allowing users to query historical transactions only. This marks the official end of a nine-year era of Layer 1.
Why shut down the mainnet? A full bet on cross-chain infrastructure SODA X.
In their announcement, the ICON team frankly admitted that when they were founded in 2017, the blockchain industry was severely lacking in cross-chain settlement infrastructure, so they built their own Layer 1 mainnet. However, nine years later, the industry's bottleneck is no longer "settlement," but rather "liquidity, user experience, and execution efficiency."
To adapt to modern needs, the team rebranded and fully transformed into SODA X over the past year. This is a cross-chain execution layer and liquidity system based on intent and solver technologies, and it can now successfully coordinate transactions across more than 18 blockchain networks.
The official statement reads: "Continuing to maintain a Layer 1 that no longer aligns with our mission will only waste resources and funds. Shutting down the ICON network is the final step in completing the transformation, and we will invest all our resources in SODA X products that are truly adopted by users and developers."
The deadline for migration is approaching: Starting in September, the system will switch to "one-way exchange".
With the mainnet shutdown, the native token $ICX will be fully converted to the new token $SODA. The official timeline for the complete and extremely time-pressured exit has been released:
- May 2026: Initiate a governance vote to formally approve the network shutdown plan at the end of December by node validators.
- September 30, 2026: Close the two-way token migration bridge, and from then on only support one-way exchange from ICX to SODA .
- December 31, 2026: The final deadline for token migration. After this date, $ICX will no longer be able to undergo any migrations.
User operation suggestions:
Users who store ICX in "self-custodial wallets" must complete the migration to SODA Exchange before the end of the year and prepare a small amount of gas fees on the Sonic network; while users who store ICX in "centralized exchanges (CEXs)" do not need to take any action, as exchanges will announce and automatically execute token conversion plans this summer (the well-known exchange Kraken has already included SODA in its listing roadmap).
The departure of ICON is not the end, but rather a decisive transformation made by the veteran project in order to survive. With the launch of SODA X SDK v2 and support for AI agent development, this team with 9 years of experience is trying to regain its leading position in the fiercely competitive cross-chain and chain abstraction field.
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