Secret Network wants out of Cosmos. The privacy-focused layer-1 blockchain has proposed moving to Ethereum layer-2 Arbitrum, and the main reason might surprise you: AI is making old code too easy to exploit.
Secret Network’s been running privacy-preserving smart contracts on Cosmos since 2020. Back then, that ecosystem had serious momentum. Not anymore. “The environment has changed,” the team said in a Tuesday forum post.
Their biggest concern? Security. “With AI, the cost of attacking stale code is falling across the board,” they wrote. Modern models like Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5 can read contracts, trace assumptions, and turn forgotten edge cases into working exploits. Cheaply.
The recent Axelar-Secret IBC bridge exploit that cost $4.7 million in bridged assets? That’s exactly the kind of thing they’re worried will become routine — aging code meeting AI-powered analysis.
There’s also a liquidity problem. Cosmos has around $2 billion in total value locked, down 88% from its 2021 peak. Secret Network itself has just $1.3 million TVL there. Arbitrum, by contrast, holds $17.4 billion. “Liquidity has thinned” on Cosmos, the team says, while builders have “drifted to other ecosystems.”
The plan: take a one-time snapshot of SCRT balances on September 1, then issue a new ERC-20 SCRT contract on Arbitrum. It still needs a governance vote to pass.
SCRT holders didn’t wait for the details. The token dropped 24% in a day to 4.1 cents — down over 99% from its 2021 peak.
Secret isn’t alone in leaving Cosmos. NilChain moved to Ethereum in February. Sei Network completed a full Cosmos-to-EVM transition in June. Stablecoin blockchain Noble announced its own departure in January.
The proposal argues that for SCRT to survive, it needs a stable home. The team believes that home is Arbitrum.
