Ronin migrates to Ethereum Layer 2 on May 12 — four years after the $625M Lazarus hack!

Ronin Network will complete its migration from an independent Ethereum sidechain to an OP Stack-based Layer 2 on May 12, with approximately 10 hours of scheduled downtime expected during the transition. The move marks a fundamental architectural shift for the blockchain best known as the backbone of Axie Infinity.

The timing carries weight: the upgrade arrives almost exactly four years after the March 2022 Ronin bridge exploit, in which North Korea's Lazarus Group drained $625 million in ETH and USDC — still one of the largest hacks in crypto history. Migrating to Ethereum's security model via the OP Stack is a direct structural answer to the trust deficit that exploit created.

Landing on the OP Stack also places Ronin inside the Superchain ecosystem, giving it shared sequencing infrastructure and Ethereum finality — a meaningful upgrade for any gaming application that needs to…