Hello Obol community,
My name is essaimess, I’ve been part of this project since the early phases as a node operator based in Africa. I’m writing this proposal with the hope that it opens a fair and inclusive path for contributors like me who couldn’t claim their tokens due to real-world difficulties.
Summary
This proposal suggests the introduction of a one-time, time-limited claiming grace period or a manual claiming process for verified early contributors who were unable to claim their Obol tokens before the May 2nd deadline due to exceptional and verifiable circumstances (e.g., unstable internet, socioeconomic hardship, regional infrastructure limitations).
Context
I am an early participant in the Obol project and currently operate a node as a lead operator. I’ve been involved since the initial stages, running a server, engaging with the community, and promoting the mission of Obol — all while living in a region (Africa) where internet access is highly unreliable and economic conditions are difficult.
Unfortunately, I was unable to claim my tokens before the deadline at https://claim.obol.org. I’ve since learned that unclaimed tokens have been returned to the treasury, as per [OIP-2] (OIP#2 Unlock OBOL Token).
This proposal aims to address a gap: OIP-2 does not account for contributors who actively participated but were prevented from claiming due to external, legitimate, and documented constraints.
Motivation
No Exception Path Exists Today
OIP-2 makes no provision for genuine edge cases or contributors impacted by force majeure.
Underserved Regions Were Disadvantaged
Many participants in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia lacked access to consistent updates, reminders, and technical conditions to complete the claiming in time.
Real Contributors, Real Effort
Many of us built teams, deployed and maintained nodes, and believed in Obol from day one. Missing out on tokens isn’t just about missing value — it’s missing recognition.
Impact on Decentralization Goals
Reallocating these tokens to the treasury rather than the original contributors affects validator diversity and undermines grassroots trust.
Precedents Exist in Web3
Leading projects like ENS, Optimism, and Arbitrum have granted manual or exceptional claim processes for community members who missed deadlines under valid constraints.
Proposed Solution
One-time Exceptional Claim Process
Allow eligible users to submit a request and prove their involvement and reasons for delay (node operator address, region, activity logs, etc.).
Time-limited Reopening
A short window (e.g., 7 days) for verified users to claim manually or through a simplified process.
Community Oversight
Requests can be reviewed by the DAO or designated stewards to prevent abuse and ensure fairness.
Conclusion
This proposal is not about reopening the floodgates. It’s about doing right by those who gave real energy to Obol under harsh conditions, and showing that this network stands for inclusion, decentralization, and fairness in the real world — not just in theory.
I welcome the community’s thoughts and support, and thank you for taking the time to consider this.
I already tried to communicate this, but doesn’t hurt to try one more time
I am in a similar situation to you except I am not an operator but I simply staked. I staked through the mellow app and for that I was granted an airdrop. Through the mellow UI I could only see that I am accruing points, and I was periodically checking if these points can be used for anything.
Visiting the website at obol.org showed nothing whenever I checked, and trying to join the discord also didn’t work as the invite link was not working.
I can’t give an exact timeline of what I did and when, but I took a look at the web archive and for some of the dates after the 90 days window has started there is nothing being communicated regarding the claim. I just felt like this whole thing was poorly communicated, and I missed out on this airdrop because of that and the team shows no incentive to correct this, and I’m unsure what the incentive other people who claimed would have to vote on this issue to correct it
In my case, I was 5 days late and I missed out on quite a lot of OBOL tokens as I put my assets in this vault, so now I am feeling completely left out only because I don’t follow crypto twitter actively and I didn’t join the discord, assuming that the discord invite links worked at some point
Totally hear you — and honestly, your story just reinforces why we need this proposal to be taken seriously.
You’re right: the communication around the claim was fragmented, and many of us (especially those not glued to crypto Twitter or dealing with real-life limitations) were left behind through no fault of our own.
Whether you were an operator or staker, you participated, you believed, and you contributed — that should matter more than missing a deadline by a few days.
Even if the team isn’t pushing for change, the community still has power through proposals. If enough of us raise our voices and show this wasn’t an isolated mistake, it becomes much harder to ignore.
I’d really appreciate your support — even just a comment to say “+1” or “same situation” helps give weight to the proposal.
It’s painful claiming are closed, I think i saw a tweet of OBOL collaboration with Bitget via a launchpool initiative to get more OBOL. The APR is quite generous and I’ve seen positive buzz on the event already.
I’ll have to see if I can be able to leverage that offer so I won’t miss out on the token since the entry threshold isn’t high.
Thank you for bringing this topic up! It’s good to see meaningful proposals like this one. I’m neither for nor against this proposal as of writing this post, I’m missing feedback and information which I’d be happy to read up on!
Review
There are a bunch of things I wanna address from this paragraph:
Do you suggest a “time-limited claiming grace period” or a “manual claiming process” or both?
The verifiable circumstances would be manually verified, because they are real-life events. This would be a significant effort. I’m also hesitant to believe there are many people who have no internet for 90 days and have been engaged to Obol before.
The period to claim was 90 days. 3 months is a significant time to read up on and claim Obol tokens if the claimer is interested and keeps up with the project. One could argue that missing the 90 days window to claim is also a sign of not following the project close enough.
To my knowledge there were announcements on X, Discord, Telegram and Obol’s blog. The content was also redistributed by other prominent parties.
I strongly agree with this. Regions with unfavorable conditions are not to left out.
My feeling is looking for a permanent solution would be the best approach. Otherwise we might need an exception from the exception and so on.
Other things I noticed about this proposal:
Proposals should be concrete & precise. To me there are a lot of variables missing, precise dates, durations, specific criteria for late claimers, … I’m happy to help here but would love to get a better understanding first.
I’d also suggest – in the event of this proposal getting through – to deduct the efforts and expenses of the Obol team to implement this proposal from the token pool distribution. Meaning, the late claimers would receive less than the ones that claimed in time.
It stands out that people missed the 90-day claim window but made a proposal the day after TGE.
My very subjective and limited view is that this proposal might only affect a handful of people, and some of them might not even know about the TGE yet.
I’m against this proposal. If folks couldn’t claim in 90 days, that’s not the community we’re looking for. And let’s be real—those tokens would get dumped the second they hit wallets.
Token claim was open for a significant 3 months, giving everyone plenty of time to participate.
Trying to verify every ‘exceptional circumstance’ now would be very hard and might invite claims from those who simply missed the deadline due to not paying close attention.
We should respect the OIP-2 decision, agreed upon by the more involved community, which directed unclaimed tokens to the treasury.
Frankly, it’s very hard to believe that someone had absolutely no internet access for that entire three-month period.
A recent proposal on this topic was submitted on Tally that unfortunately does not meet the minimum submission requirements as defined in the governance rules:
Requirement: Any proposal must receive explicit approval from at least 4 Top 100 delegates prior to being submitted onchain.
As this proposal was submitted without the required endorsements, it will be considered invalid and will likely be cancelled on Tally in the coming hours.
We kindly ask delegates not to cast any votes, as the outcome will not be enforceable in any case.
This is a good opportunity to remind everyone to carefully follow the proposal lifecycle and approval flow before triggering an onchain vote. If in doubt, feel free to reach out beforehand.
Thank you for your attention and your continued participation.
Good day!
I wanted to say that this topic is directly opposite to the proposal that is currently registered in Tally.
I propose to discuss extending the period for branding and receiving the drop
My arguments for:
This drop was originally intended for users, for those who are now asking for additional time to receive the drop
Limiting the period for receiving the drop is not justified by anything, except the desire to increase user involvement in the Obol processes (which in itself is not bad)
Users who have benefited the project should receive their drop. You can say that they themselves are to blame, but in fact, nothing prevents us from extending this period and getting more loyal users
We could not determine in advance that a significant portion of the drop would not be distributed, and 90 days were not taken in order to cut off some of the users
In summary, I believe that it is necessary to extend the period for receiving the drop for all users, regardless of their contribution or the reason for not receiving it
As a delegate with sufficient voting power I will support this proposal if it is adjusted to exclude restrictions on receiving the drop. Everyone has the right to a second chance
I see that we are not the only one!)
Fully support, and I even wrote my proposal (new topic), but it is still on the moderator’s approval. There you can consider the boundary from which the “active participant” begins, the new stigma period and what to do after the next deadline. Here is the text I am proposing:
“Update on unclaimed tokens
Due to various circumstances, different people failed to claim tokens as a thank you from the project for their contribution (political imprisonment, family circumstances, health conditions, forgetfulness and various other cases that we can’t even think of) during the 90 days that were allotted for this.
Also taking into account that the OIP#2 vote is ambiguous about what to do after 24 with tokens that were not claimed:
“The claim of the Airdrop finishes (90 days after the claiming period started). After that, the unclaimed Tokens will return to the Association Treasury. Note that post redemption enabled, unclaimed locked tokens will still remain in the Airdrop smart contract and need to be claimed in their locked version before being unlocked”.
I would like to note that active participants deserve to receive their rewards.
That’s why I propose to give the opportunity to reclaim tokens only to Active community members. I propose to discuss the threshold of “activity” here - conditionally from 1k, 5k, 10k tokens. Make the period again 90 days.
Unclaimed tokens after this period I suggest either burning or sending them for a reward to stimulate the community.
Those wallets that will not fall under the minimum threshold for the “active” wallet I also suggest to burn or send to the reward for community incentives, or wait for the end of the period of claiming.
Responsible people please pay attention to the proposal and speak out”
Requirement: Any proposal must receive explicit approval from at least 4 Top 100 delegates prior to being submitted onchain.
Proposal in question: 
We kindly ask delegates not to cast any votes, as the outcome will not be enforceable in any case.