Balanced retires governance
The end of community ownership, BALN > SODA migration, and the path to Balanced v2.
Balanced has reached the end of an era. Community-owned since the first vote in May 2021, the DAO just approved the final Balanced proposal to shut down governance and retire the BALN token.
The change marks the end of Balanced’s transition from a frontend for its own protocol, to a frontend for third-party protocols — starting with SODAX.
Learn more about the changes, what they mean for you, and where Balanced is going from here.
Balanced is no longer community-owned
In May, ICON announced their plan to merge with the Balanced protocol to become SODAX, a cross-chain DeFi platform and unified liquidity layer on the Sonic blockchain. No longer limited by the needs of a specific protocol, PARROT9 decided to continue with the Balanced app as an independent product.
The change to SODAX required new smart contracts built on the Sonic blockchain, which meant all of Balanced’s existing features would soon become legacy. As Balanced would become a frontend without its own protocol, that included governance and the BALN token.
We began the transition in September when we upgraded the Trade page to use the SODAX technology stack and moved the legacy trade experience (including liquidity pools) to a separate page.
And after a 7-day vote, the Balanced DAO approved the final proposal to retire governance, halt BALN inflation, distribute the DAO Fund, and remove the early unlock penalty for bBALN.
The changes were enacted yesterday, so Balanced is no longer owned by its community.
What the changes mean for you
No more governance or bBALN
After the approval of BIP 112, governance has been shut down, BALN inflation halted, and the bBALN early unlock penalty removed.
If you previously locked up BALN, you can no longer vote, incentivise liquidity pools, boost your BALN rewards, or earn network fees. You can now withdraw your BALN at no cost, regardless of the unlock date.
There’s no reason to continue holding BALN, so you can now migrate it to SODA, the SODAX governance token. See the migration section below for more details.
DAO Fund distribution
The remaining funds held by the DAO will be converted to SODA and distributed to the community in six months. Worth ~$135,000 at the time of publishing, the amount you’ll receive depends on how many SODA you lock up compared to everyone else during the migration.
Reduced Savings Rate and liquidity rewards
The Savings Rate no longer distributes rewards in BALN or bnUSD, and liquidity pools no longer earn BALN.
However, the Savings Rate and ICX/sICX pool will continue to earn sICX from the ICON Foundation until early next year.
The legacy exchange will remain available until sometime in 2026, so you can withdraw your liquidity whenever it’s convenient.
Migrate your BALN to SODA
BALN is going away, but you can convert it to SODA instead. SODA is the SODAX governance token, and it now supports staking rewards.
The amount of SODA you receive depends on how long you choose to lock it during the migration.
For every 1 BALN:
- No lockup = 0.5 SODA
- 6 months = 0.75 SODA
- 12 months = 1 SODA
- 18 months = 1.25 SODA
- 24 months = 1.5 SODA
If you lock up SODA, you’ll receive a share of the DAO Fund six months from now. You can also stake it to earn rewards throughout the lock-up period, but be warned: it takes 6 months or a large penalty fee to unstake, so unstake well ahead of your unlock date if you want immediate access.
You can convert BALN to SODA from the Migrate tab on the Trade page. You’ll need to hold BALN on ICON and connect a Sonic wallet to complete the migration. If your BALN is on another chain, use the legacy exchange to transfer it.
While there’s no rush to migrate your tokens, make sure to do it within six months of this post (by the start of May) if you want to receive a share of the DAO Fund.
To learn more about the migration process, visit the docs:
Coming soon: Balanced v2
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Balanced DAO over the last 4.5 years. We’re proud of everything we accomplished as a community.
Now that governance has been removed and the BALN > SODA migration is live, it’s time to turn our attention to Balanced v2: a new app built from the ground up.
Balanced v2 will start with money markets and trading (both powered by SODAX), which we expect to ship within a few months. From there, we’ll add support for features from additional protocols.
When we launch v2, we’ll move the existing app to a different domain so you can migrate BALN, repay loans, and withdraw your funds from the liquidity pools and Savings Rate without any immediate time pressure.
To learn more about Balanced’s direction, make sure to check out the Q4 2025 roadmap update.