Gnosis Chain Approves EEZ Rollup Transition to Settle Directly on Ethereum

GnosisDAO approved a proposal to convert Gnosis Chain into an Ethereum Economic Zone rollup, a governance decision that replaces the chain's independent validator set with direct settlement on Ethereum mainnet. **What does the EEZ transition change for Gnosis Chain?** The chain will no longer operate its own validator set for consensus. Instead, it will post transaction batches and state roots to Ethereum, inheriting Ethereum's security and finality while using its own execution environment. This mirrors the rollup architecture used by Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, but Gnosis Chain arrives with an established user base and the Gnosis Safe smart contract wallet infrastructure already deployed. **Why did GnosisDAO pursue this now?** The proposal cited rising operational costs of maintaining a separate validator network and the desire to align with Ethereum's roadmap, particularly danksharding and data-availability improvements that reduce rollup posting fees. Validators on Gnosis Chain currently number around 100; the EEZ model removes the need for that set entirely, cutting overhead and centralization risk. **How does this compare to other L2s?** CoinGecko data shows unlike newer L2s that launched as rollups from day one, Gnosis Chain migrates an existing live chain with over $500 million in historical TVL and millions of Safe deployments. The migration preserves existing addresses and contract deployments, avoiding the liquidity fragmentation that often accompanies new L2 launches. Fee data from the past week shows Ethereum mainnet average fees at $1.20 while Gnosis Chain fees remain under $0.01, a gap the EEZ model narrows by batching posts to Ethereum. **What happens next for users and developers?** The technical migration will roll out in phases: first a testnet EEZ deployment, then a mainnet upgrade that swaps the consensus client for a rollup node. Safe multisig users will see no address changes. Developers keep existing RPC endpoints. The GnosisDAO treasury, which holds GNO and ETH, will fund the transition through a dedicated multisig. Governance votes on parameter changes, such as batch posting frequency and gas price targets, will continue on-chain. The EEZ approval makes Gnosis Chain the first major sidechain to formally abandon its validator set for Ethereum rollup settlement, setting a precedent for other independent chains weighing the cost of sovereignty.