Robonomics shuts its Kusama parachain, moving XRT to Polkadot with a 20% bonus
Victoria Shinder2 min readRobonomics has wound down its parachain on Kusama, para ID 2048, the project's software architect wrote on the Polkadot forum on 29 September. The chain stopped producing blocks on 28 September. Its final block is #12,268,835, at 19:48 UTC, the last Robonomics head finalised by the Kusama relay chain.
Kusama hosted what the team calls the project's research and development stage since 2021. Production has moved to Polkadot, and the post describes the shutdown as closing the Kusama chapter. The chain's coretime on Kusama ran until 22 September and was not renewed.
The post is candid about how hard it was to stop a parachain cleanly. The first attempt was a multisig call that removed the queued session keys. That emptied the session set at the following rotation, yet block production continued, because the Aura consensus module keeps a separate list of authorities. What finally worked was one last runtime upgrade, spec version 49, pushed through the team's multisig and active from block #12,268,835. Collators still built three blocks after that, reaching #12,268,838, none of which the relay chain accepted.
The chain state at the final block stays as it is, and a database archive of the parachain is available from the project's snapshot site.
For token holders, all XRT balances on Kusama at the final block move to Polkadot with a 20% bonus. There is no buyback option on the Kusama side. The team contrasts this with its earlier move from Ethereum, where holders were offered a choice because, it says, much more changed for them. Details on where the balances will appear are promised in a separate post.
Why it matters
Parachains have been launched far more often than they have been retired, and the team's account of what did not work, an empty session set that Aura ignored, is useful to anyone planning an exit. Holders should wait for the follow-up post before acting on the migration.