ZETA Moves to Solana: What Holders in Germany Must Check Now

If you hold ZETA, the short answer is that in most cases you do not have to do anything yourself. One thing is still worth settling over the next few days, namely whether the exchange where your ZETA sits will take part in the swap at all. On September 20, 2026, ZETA holders voted with 99.4 percent approval to move the token 1:1 to Solana as an SPL token and to shut down the project's own blockchain afterwards. There is still no date for it.

This article sets out what the decision means for investors in Germany: what Proposal 68 actually allows, what role your exchange plays in it, what happens to staked balances and to ZETA on Ethereum and BNB Chain, how a swap like this can look for tax purposes, and which three steps make sense now. The basis is the project's announcement of September 17, 2026 and the voting result, which we pulled straight from the governance interface of the ZetaChain blockchain on September 21, 2026 at 06:37 UTC and recalculated ourselves.

What did the ZETA community decide in Proposal 68?

In a blockchain such as ZetaChain, a proposal is a governance motion: a request that all token holders vote on with their balance and that applies to the entire network once it is accepted. Proposal 68 carries the title "Migrate ZETA to Solana" and closed on September 20, 2026 at 14:58:18 UTC. Its status has read PROPOSAL_STATUS_PASSED ever since, so the motion is accepted.

The count, which we recalculated ourselves, was clear-cut: around 263.65 million ZETA voted yes, roughly 744,658 ZETA voted no, and a further 752,300 ZETA abstained. That puts the yes share at 99.4 percent of all votes cast. This was nothing like a narrow result, and that is precisely why the direction is now set.

A word on the mechanics of this vote: ZetaChain is built as a Cosmos EVM chain and uses the governance module of that toolkit. Motions are filed directly on the blockchain, voting weight follows the balance held, and a quorum sets the minimum participation required. We therefore did not take the result from a news report but queried the chain's own governance endpoint and recalculated the count.

What has been decided is the direction, not the schedule. The text of the motion says so explicitly: acceptance confirms "the direction and proposed approach", and a second motion is to supply the specific mechanism and the dates of the migration afterwards. For you that means the move is coming and the dates come later. Still open are the migration mechanism, any cut-off block for balances, known in the jargon as the snapshot height, and the timetable.

In substance, the decision provides for ZETA to exist as a native SPL token in future. An SPL token is a token built to the token standard of the Solana blockchain, comparable to what ERC-20 is on Ethereum. The ticker stays ZETA, the swap runs at a ratio of 1:1, the total supply remains unchanged, and no new tokens are created in the process. ZetaChain's own layer 1, meaning the project's standalone blockchain, is to be wound down once the balances have moved.

Do ZETA holders have to do anything now?

The project puts it this way in its announcement: "Most holders should not need to do anything." That reassurance comes with one clearly named exception, and it concerns the very place where most German investors keep their coins: the exchange.

According to the announcement, what stays unchanged is the ticker and the 1:1 swap ratio, the total supply with no new tokens, the vesting schedules with their original dates, and your balance including locked and staked positions. ZETA on Ethereum and BNB Chain is likewise untouched. Vesting refers to the staggered release of tokens to the team, investors or early backers over time; the fact that these dates stand means for the market that the move triggers no additional wave of selling.

What will change is the blockchain ZETA runs on, the token standard, the validators and the ecosystem around it: Solana's infrastructure instead of a validator set of its own, and the trading venues, wallets and payment rails there instead of the project's own environment. For you as a holder this is above all a technical switch, as long as your balance really does travel with it.

The sentence that matters comes a little further down in the same announcement: "Exchange conversions depend on each exchange confirming the swap." And the list of participating venues is to be published before anything moves at all. That is exactly where your only real task over the coming weeks comes from.

How to check whether your exchange supports the ZETA swap

The sequence is always the same with token conversions: the exchange announces the swap, halts deposits and withdrawals of the affected token for a few hours or days, rebooks the balances, and reopens trading afterwards. Anyone sitting at a venue that does not take part has a limited window in which to react. How tight such windows can become is something we traced most recently in the swap from STG into ZRO and in the one-way street from ICX to SODA.

In practice that means three things. First, check the status page or the announcements section of your exchange to see whether ZETA appears there. Second, if nothing is stated there, ask support in writing whether the exchange supports the swap, and keep the reply. Third, if no confirmation comes, you have two routes, namely selling before the switch or withdrawing to a wallet of your own that supports Solana. Either is a decision with consequences, and you should take it calmly while no date is on the table.

A word on choosing a venue: if you are thinking about a change anyway, it is worth looking at our comparison of the best crypto exchanges, which sets fees, deposit routes and licensing status side by side.

ZETA on Ethereum and BNB Chain: what the decision does not change there

This is the point where English-language coverage becomes imprecise, so here is the wording of the primary source: ZETA on Ethereum and BSC appears in the announcement under the heading "What stays", and there it says in as many words that the proposal does not touch these balances. So the decision does not exclude them from the swap; it simply does not deal with them.

For you that is an important distinction. Anyone holding ZETA as an ERC-20 token in an Ethereum wallet is not directly affected by the shutdown of the ZetaChain layer 1. What happens to those balances in the medium term is one of the points the announced second motion will have to settle. Until then the rule is: no panic, but no assumption that this sorts itself out either.

So check first where your ZETA technically sits. A look at the block explorer of the chain in question, or at the network display in your wallet, will show you whether you hold native ZETA on the ZetaChain blockchain, an ERC-20 token on Ethereum or a BEP-20 token on BNB Chain. That answer decides which part of the decision applies to you.

What happens to staked ZETA and to the validators?

Staking means locking up tokens in support of network security, for which holders receive an ongoing reward. At ZetaChain this staking continues for the time being: until the layer 1 is shut down, the validators will keep validating as before according to the project, and staking works unchanged.

What is open, by contrast, is what becomes of staking on Solana. The project writes that the question of how staking, and in particular the transition of staking rewards to Solana, is to be solved is "under active exploration"; the formal motion is to set the mechanism. Anyone with larger amounts staked today should keep an eye on this, because a gap can open up between the end of the old rewards and the start of a new model.

Important for your own bookkeeping: staking rewards are treated differently in Germany from the sale of a coin. As a rule such rewards count as other income at the point at which they are received. So keep a running note of the date, amount and price of the rewards received, regardless of how the migration is ultimately designed.

Why there is no bridge route to the SPL token

A bridge connects two blockchains by locking the original token on the source chain and issuing a wrapped copy on the target chain. That route is ruled out here, and the reasoning in the announcement is technically compelling: a wrapped token needs the original, locked on a chain that will no longer exist in future.

It follows that the SPL token on Solana is meant to end up as the only ZETA still in existence, and that the formal motion will have to define how the balances transfer. For investors that is rather good news, because bridge constructions are among the most vulnerable components in the crypto market. A native token on an established chain saves that attack surface.

When will the ZETA migration come? What is known about the date

The primary source is terse on the question of timing: "There is no date yet." The schedule, it says, depends on the exchanges confirming the swap, and the formal motion is to carry the dates.

Anyone who gives you a specific migration date today has made it up. What you can watch instead are two solid signals: the announced list of participating exchanges, and the second governance motion with the mechanism and the dates. Both will run through the project's official channels, and both come before the switch itself.

A look at comparable cases helps to place the time frame. With the shutdown of the Harmony mainnet, weeks passed between announcement and execution, and exchanges followed one after another. That is not a fixed rule, but it does suggest that haste in the first few days is rarely necessary.

What the price jump since the vote says about the risk

The market acknowledged the decision emphatically. On September 21, 2026 at around 06:37 UTC, ZETA was quoted between 0.057 and 0.058 euros depending on the source: 0.0573 euros on CoinGecko, 0.0578 euros in the ZETA-EUR pair at Bitvavo and 0.0582 euros at Kraken. CoinGecko showed a gain of around 70 percent within 24 hours and a market capitalisation of some 92 million euros, while the daily range at Kraken ran from 0.0332 to 0.0705 euros.

Swings like this are a risk warning and not a buy recommendation. A price doubling within a single day shows above all how thin the order book of a token of this size is. Buying into a move like that means paying for the expectation that the move will go through smoothly; selling means giving up the possibility that the larger market on Solana brings the token lasting usage.

To place the target network, it is worth looking at its own constitution: Solana processes transactions in around 400 milliseconds at fees in the region of a tenth of a cent, according to the project, and it is precisely this cost structure that ZetaChain cites as the reason for the switch.

Part of the background to the move is the product ZetaChain brings with it: Anuma, a private AI application with, according to the project, more than 300,000 users since February 2026 and over a million requests across 35 models. Anuma sits on top of the project's Private Memory Layer, an encrypted memory layer that several AI models can access without any one provider receiving the full history. It is exactly this application layer that is to be opened up on Solana to further AI apps and agents. ZETA serves there as an access token that users lock in order to receive credit for AI usage. Whether that usage holds up is the real bet behind the switch to Solana's application layer.

Tax in Germany: is a 1:1 swap a disposal under Section 23 EStG?

For private investors in Germany the rule is this: gains from the sale of crypto assets are tax-free under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act if more than a year lies between acquisition and disposal. Within that holding period, an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros has applied since the 2024 assessment period, covering all private disposal transactions of a year taken together. If it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable, not just the part above it.

Swapping one coin for another generally has the same tax effect as a sale followed by a fresh purchase. Why that is so and what consequences it has for the holding period is something we have explained in detail in our article on why a coin swap can have the tax effect of a sale.

That does not, however, answer whether a chain migration at a ratio of 1:1 falls under the same provision. The authoritative circular of the German Federal Ministry of Finance of March 6, 2025, which replaced the version of May 10, 2022, covers acquisition, disposal, swaps, staking and record-keeping duties, but does not expressly govern the case of a chain change with an identical token. In practice two readings stand opposed: one sees no disposal in the mere switch of technical standard, because economically the same asset continues to exist in an unchanged quantity. The other treats every change of token as a swap with a new holding period.

As long as that question is open, what protects you above all is clean documentation. For every holding, record when you acquired it and at what price, how large the amount was on the day of the switch, which route it was switched through, and what notice your exchange sent about it. A tax tool or portfolio tracker takes that chronology off your hands, and with larger holdings the assessment belongs in the hands of a tax adviser. This assessment is no substitute for tax advice.

Where ZETA can be traded in Germany and what MiCA has to do with it

ZETA is regularly tradable in euros for German investors. We asked the trading venues directly on September 21, 2026 at 06:33 UTC: Bitvavo lists the ZETA-EUR pair with the status "trading", Kraken lists the pairs ZETA/EUR and ZETA/USD. Both houses operate under the European crypto regulation MiCA, Bitvavo with an authorisation from the Dutch supervisor AFM dating from June 2025, Kraken with an authorisation via the Irish central bank.

MiCA stands for "Markets in Crypto-Assets" and is the EU regulation that has set uniform rules for trading platforms, custodians and issuers since the end of 2024. A MiCA authorisation is not a seal of quality for an individual token and no protection against price losses. The status means that the provider has to comply with requirements on own funds, custody of client money and complaint procedures, and that a European supervisor is responsible.

For the upcoming swap that means two things. An authorised exchange is obliged to inform customers about material changes, which increases the chance that you receive an announcement in good time. An obligation to follow every token migration technically does not follow from it. Each venue takes that decision for itself, which is why asking support remains the quickest route to certainty.

Custody: how to prepare a Solana wallet without falling for phishing

If you want to hold your ZETA yourself, you need a wallet that supports Solana. With a hardware wallet the private key sits on a device with no internet connection, and every transaction has to be confirmed there physically. Which models suit which purpose is shown by the comparison further down in step two.

Token migrations are a favourite occasion for fraudsters, because they supply a plausible excuse for haste. The pattern is always similar: an email or a post on social media announces a "migration portal", demands the recovery phrase or a signature, and then empties the wallet. Remember the counter-rule: for a 1:1 swap carried out by the exchange and the protocol, you never have to enter your recovery phrase, and a swap that demands an upfront payment from you is not one.

Two further habits help. Get information on the state of the migration exclusively through the official channels of the project and of your exchange, rather than following links from search ads or direct messages. And before the first transfer to a new address, check with a small test amount that the route works, before the whole holding goes.

ZETA migration: what you take away from it

1. Establish where your ZETA sits, and ask your exchange. Native ZETA on the ZetaChain blockchain is affected by the shutdown; balances on Ethereum and BNB Chain are not touched by the decision. If your venue's status page says nothing about the swap, ask support in writing. Anyone planning to change venue anyway will find fees and licences in the exchange comparison.
2. Prepare your own custody before a date is set. Setting up a Solana-capable wallet and testing it with a small amount costs half an hour and takes the time pressure off you should your exchange not take part in the swap. Which devices are up to it is shown by the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Document your holdings and acquisition data now, not later. Amount, acquisition date, acquisition price and your exchange's notice about the swap belong in a file, so that the holding period remains traceable later on. A portfolio tracker with a tax function does that on an ongoing basis.

(As of September 21, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)