In Brief:
- Anichess (official site) says its games and Public Staking Pool are already live on Base, and is urging players to move their stakes and bridge $CHECK off Abstract.
- Abstract, the consumer-focused Ethereum layer 2 built by Igloo Inc., goes offline on Dec. 15, 2026. Any funds left on the chain will become unreachable.
- Through most of 2026, Anichess has been unwinding its Abstract setup, shifting M8 points, claims and staking back to Base, where the game first launched in April 2025.
Anichess is severing its final onchain ties to Abstract, telling players that its games already operate on Base and that any $CHECK — whether staked or sitting idle — has to be moved before the chain goes dark on Dec. 15.
“Abstract is winding down. Anichess already lives on Base, so your games carry on exactly as they are,” the studio said in a post on X this week.
Abstract is winding down. Anichess already lives on Base, so your games carry on exactly as they are.
The Public Staking Pool is already on Base. Migrate your stake here: https://anichess.com/staking/migrate
Got $CHECK still sitting on Abstract? Bridge it over to Base:@AnichessView on X ↗
The Public Staking Pool already runs on Base, according to the post, which pointed stakers to a migration page at anichess.com/staking/migrate. Holders received a blunter nudge. “Got $CHECK still sitting on Abstract?” the post asked, alongside a link to a bridge.
The Dec. 15 cutoff
On Oct. 6, Abstract announced it would close its chain on Dec. 15, 2026. The project warned that funds not bridged off the network by that date will become inaccessible. Exits are available through the Migration Hub at migrate.abs.xyz or via the native bridge, which carries a three-hour delay, with Stargate listed as a third-party route.
DefiLlama data showed roughly $76 million in bridged value still sitting on Abstract as of Oct. 7.
Igloo pulls the plug
Igloo Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins PENGU $0.008062 ▼ -16.1%, built Abstract. Chief Executive Luca Netz said the firm had bankrolled the network for 18 months, losing tens of millions of dollars in the process.
“Unknown to most, Igloo, Inc. had been funding Abstract over the last 18 months. After losing tens of millions of dollars over two years, building consumer products, assembling an all-star team, onboarding some of the biggest brands in the world, and building a community of millions, we still had not found product-market fit,” Netz said.
“We could no longer justify taking from the Pudgy Penguins business,” he said. Igloo secured more than $11 million in July 2024 in a round led by Founders Fund to develop the chain, which brought its mainnet online in January 2025. Abstract drew more than 400,000 users and handled over 325 million transactions. According to Netz, the team weighed releasing a token to keep the network afloat but ultimately said no.
The announcement landed four days after Blast, another Ethereum layer 2, said on Oct. 2 that it would shut down as its operating costs outstripped revenue.
A return to its roots
Anichess rolled out its M8 points layer on Base in April 2025, and the split arrived alongside the token. $CHECK was named the game’s native token on Nov. 13, 2025, capping a rollout that started Nov. 12, while staking, claims and M8 accrual shifted to Abstract. Liquidity and trading stayed on Base through Aerodrome Finance, meaning players had to hop between the two chains to trade or supply liquidity. The Ethernals NFT collection never left Ethereum.
The journey home started in August. Anichess launched an M8 migration opt-in on Aug. 25, set a Sept. 7 cutoff and closed out final M8 claims on Sept. 13. Then on Oct. 2, the studio loaded 300,000 M8 into its public staking pool for distribution across 30 days.
M8 serves as the game’s nontransferable points layer. Players rack it up by completing 15 Standard matches a week or by staking $CHECK, and it unlocks access to Checkmate Arena, the weekly draw that pays 50 players at least 500 $CHECK apiece.
$CHECK has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens, 59.38% of which is reserved for ecosystem growth and player rewards. It went live on Coinbase on April 2, 2026.
What the announcement left out
The post focused on the Public Staking Pool, the open Timewish Fountain venue, but stayed silent on the Queen of Time OG pool. That pool, limited to Season 1-4 players and Ethernal holders, delivers a permanent 5x multiplier on Checkmate Reign emissions.
Abstract’s updated terms of service, released alongside the wind-down announcement, caution that no recovery process after the chain’s normal transaction processing ends is guaranteed.