the lock was "removed." 51 tickets are still locked.
alphafi's app & docs said the ALPHA vault lock was 35 days. the chain enforces 28, counted from the weekly settle. & when the admin set it to 0 on sep 25, that only reached tickets settled after that moment. i traced 278 completed withdrawals back to their requests & dry-ran a claim on a locked ticket to be sure. i had a 107 ALPHA ticket in this vault myself, which is the only reason i know any of this.
how a withdrawal actually works
read from the ticket objects, the pool object 0x06a49223… & a dry run. the move source isn't public, but the per-ticket timestamps make it unambiguous.
- you call user_initiate_withdraw. the pool creates a UserWithdrawRequest ticket inside your position w time_of_request set & no unlock date yet.
- the admin's settle_requests_manual runs weekly (sundays 14:00 utc, sometimes late). it accepts every pending ticket: stamps time_of_acceptance w the settle time & time_of_unlock w settle time plus the pool's locking_period, creates a batch entry keyed by the settle time holding the batch's ALPHA, & redeems that much from the strategy. the lock is copied onto the ticket at this moment. later changes to locking_period don't touch it.
- the keeper's process_withdraw_requests_manual moves one batch at a time into a shared claim pot (claimable_balance) & deletes the batch entry.
- user_claim_withdraw checks your ticket's stamped time_of_unlock against the clock & pays you out of the pot. if the pot is short, you wait for the keeper.
so "the lock" is two things: a number on the pool (28 days), & a date stamped on your ticket at settle time. the tweet said the lock period "has been removed." the number on the pool was. the dates on the tickets weren't, cuz they can't be.
35 days vs 28, measured
alphafi.xyz/alpha & the docs say the lock period is "fixed at 35 days and enforced on-chain." the pool enforces 28 days from settlement. since the settle is weekly, a request waits 28 to 35 days depending on when in the week you made it. so 35 is the worst case, not the rule. i'd call that a rounding up.
the one ticket over 35 days (35.41) was requested jul 19 21:42 & the jul 26 settle ran late, on monday jul 27 at 07:27. settles i saw: aug 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 at 14:00, then sep 6 at 23:59, sep 16 at 01:34, sep 20 at 14:00. five of the 278, so you can see the shape:
| requested | settled | unlock stamped | claimed | ALPHA | request to unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 22:23:54 Dm4XfsCQ… | 2025-12-07 14:50:13 4EY8iSeZ… | 2026-01-04 14:50:13 | 2026-02-09 05:10:45 7X2Q1dfE… | 0.30 | 34.68 d |
| 2025-12-21 19:36:13 73sVPeus… | 2025-12-26 07:59:33 AoTjoZaM… | 2026-01-23 07:59:33 | 2026-01-25 09:14:14 GVLA8zRF… | 84.63 | 32.52 d |
| 2026-03-02 17:53:15 (no initiate event found) | 2026-03-08 13:59:59 B9E1Xz9N… | 2026-04-05 13:59:59 | 2026-04-05 18:03:11 8nATgVLR… | 999.00 | 33.84 d |
| 2026-05-20 21:27:58 3AafoTU3… | 2026-05-24 13:59:59 G6TEr5CH… | 2026-06-21 13:59:59 | 2026-07-08 20:01:20 BMecEFJs… | 6.75 | 31.69 d |
| 2026-08-23 04:35:01 Ak4HQpgd… | 2026-08-23 14:00:00 3ny55ggT… | 2026-09-20 14:00:00 | 2026-09-21 03:24:41 229oyFwB… | 99.67 | 28.39 d |
my own ticket: requested sep 25 19:37:16 (unrelated, i was just done), accepted at the 22:30:59 settle w the lock already 0, unlock stamped 22:30:59, claimed 01:30:16 on sep 26. so i got lucky on timing & unlucky on price, which is roughly my whole crypto career.
what the 22:16:48 change did, & didn't
the vault admin set locking_period from 2,419,200,000 ms to 0 (sYHn75Uh…). that did two things & not a third:
- it made the batch settled fourteen minutes later at 22:30:59 (26 receipts, 249,296 ALPHA, 86% of it a027's 214,001) claimable the moment it settled.
- it did the same for every request queued afterwards, including everyone who reacted to the tweet.
- it did nothing for the 51 tickets settled b/w aug 30 & sep 20 (86,672 ALPHA). those people unstaked by the rules in the four weeks before the shutdown & are locked in while the token went from ~$0.93 to ~$0.02.
| settled | unlock stamped | ALPHA still locked |
|---|---|---|
| aug 30 14:00 | sep 27 14:00 | 184 |
| sep 6 23:59 | oct 4 23:59 | 1,470 |
| sep 16 01:34 | oct 14 01:34 | 84,634 |
| sep 20 14:00 | oct 18 13:59 | 384 |
| 51 tickets | 86,672 |
all 51 were still pending at 01:55 utc on sep 27 & none had been claimed. the sep 16 batch is one ticket for 56,770 ALPHA plus smaller ones.
the pot, step by step
claims were also bounded by what the pot held. pool state at each step, from past object versions on archive nodes.
| step | pool version | lock | claim pot (ALPHA) | unsupplied | pending batches | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| after lock to 0, 22:16:48 | 1020334857 | 0 | 27,405 | 45,616 | 8 | aug 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, sep 6, 16, 20; 127,145 ALPHA in batches, the sep 16 batch alone 84,634 |
| after process, 22:23:33 | 1020334859 | 0 | 28,413 | 44,608 | 7 | aug 2 batch (1,008) moved to the pot |
| after settle, 22:30:59 | 1020334862 | 0 | 28,413 | 44,608 | 8 | new batch keyed 22:30:59 w 249,296 ALPHA; tokensInvested fell 5,486,856 to 5,238,253 |
| after a59f claim, 22:35:54 | 1020334863 | 0 | 16,847 | 44,608 | 8 | pot minus exactly 11,566 |
| after 7 process calls, 22:37:09 | 1020334870 | 0 | 142,984 | 0 | 1 | the 22:30:59 batch remains |
| after settle, 23:20:10 | 1020455414 | 0 | 142,984 | 0 | 2 | new batch 126,244 (idear plus small) |
| after process, 23:20:29 | 1020455415 | 0 | 392,280 | 0 | 1 | the 22:30:59 batch (249,296) moved in; a027's 214,001 now coverable |
| after process, 23:20:40 | 1020455416 | 0 | 518,524 | 0 | 0 | the 23:20:10 batch moved in |
| after 0x0831 claim, 23:20:56 | 1020455417 | 0 | 513,515 | 0 | 0 | 5,008 claimed |
| after a027 claim, 23:21:04 | 1020455418 | 0 | 299,514 | 0 | 0 | 214,001 claimed, 35 seconds after it became coverable |
before sep 25 the lock was 28 days at both versions i checked (1010815166 on sep 21, 1019927890 at 18:07 on sep 25). a request from sep 21 would normally have settled sunday sep 27 at 14:00 & been claimable oct 25 at 14:00. a59f's 11,566 fit in the pot from the start. a027's 214,001 could not have been claimed by anyone before 23:20:29, & was claimed at 23:21:04. anyone without a queued request still had to initiate & wait for a settle; after the tweet that took two to five minutes (idear: initiate 23:19:18, settle 23:20:10, claim 23:21:05).
the 22:30:59 batch
who had a request queued b/w sep 20 & the tweet, i.e. who got the "lock removed" treatment for real. split read from the settle event, at 2.06254 ALPHA per xtoken.
| receipt | ALPHA | note |
|---|---|---|
| a027 0x027feedb…4b92 | 214,001.3 | queued sep 21 17:16:27; claimed 23:21:04 |
| 0x6bf60b81…121b | 22,146.7 | queued sep 21 15:29:57; claimed sep 26 04:09:27. second largest, waited five hours after it could have |
| a59f 0x59faca57…4725 | 11,566.0 | queued sep 21 12:29:42; claimed 22:35:54, before the tweet |
| 0xd8e0ca2a…f213 | 757.6 | queued sep 22 05:51 |
| 0x280aca17…edb0 | 300.0 | queued sep 22 02:46 |
| 0x932f26a2…f4f5 | 182.6 | queued sep 22 00:34 |
| 20 smaller receipts | 342 | incl mine, & parent's 18:07 request, & 6a49's 22:21 one |
| 26 receipts | 249,296 | the same settle processed 19 deposits totalling 693 ALPHA |
daily counts of new withdrawal requests: aug 17 to sep 14 mostly 1 to 3 a day (sep 15: 8). sep 21: 8. sep 22: 6. sep 23: 2. sep 24: 3. sep 25: 34. sep 26: 27 (partial). eight on sep 21, the day after the bailout & the day ALPHA jumped to $0.91, is two to four times normal. two of the eight were a027 & a59f. the wallet that queued at 22:21:16, 4.5 minutes after the lock change, is 6a49, a treasury payee. it never claimed. the one at 23:04:38, five minutes before the tweet, is 0x6d292ddc…d8af.