How Claims Work
HYFY claims are optional monthly distributions for eligible users. Karma is not converted automatically, and holding Karma does not guarantee a fixed HYFY amount.
Claim Journey
- Build eligible Karma. Qualifying participation is recorded during the month. Claimable and utility-only balances remain distinct.
- Meet the claim requirements. The user must satisfy identity, wallet-link, account-standing, timing, and activity safeguards.
- Submit a request. During the permitted window, the user chooses an amount up to the effective budget shown by the app.
- Close the month. The backend reconciles requests, applies system limits, prepares the monthly distribution, and commits the result.
- Review and activate. The monthly package and cryptographic commitments pass through a staged review before claims become active.
- Claim to the linked wallet. The user retrieves a wallet-bound Merkle proof and submits it to the distributor contract before the applicable deadline.
The effective request budget is the lowest amount permitted by the user's claimable balance and the current system safeguards. This prevents the interface from offering an amount that the backend would knowingly reject.
Capacity Is Protected Before a Claim Is Created
The claims reserve is protected across future periods rather than treated as a balance that can be spent in a single high-demand month. A proposed monthly pool must stay inside the lifetime community ceiling, preserve the configured reserve runway, and respect the system's current capacity controls.
Market-sensitive capacity also depends on a rolling set of verified observations. If those inputs are thin, stale, or unavailable, including during the early life of an official market, HYFY applies a conservative bootstrap limit instead of extrapolating from a small data sample. This can make an effective relay budget lower than a user's Karma balance. It is a safety limit, not a lost-balance event or an entitlement to carry a specific token amount into a later month.
The detailed thresholds are not published as a manipulation guide. The funded monthly pool, active claim root, and completed wallet claims remain independently verifiable once a distribution is activated.
Safety Properties
Each claim is bound to a specific user identity, linked wallet, month, amount, and cryptographic proof. The contract rejects invalid proofs, repeated claims, expired claims, unlinked wallets, and distributions that exceed the funded monthly pool. The treasury separately enforces its claims reserve and the lifetime community ceiling.
If a month has no valid distribution, it can close explicitly with no claims instead of publishing an invalid zero-value claim root. Where transaction sponsorship is available, HYFY may cover eligible network fees, but sponsorship is a service feature and is not guaranteed for every wallet, network condition, or claim.
Claims are rewards subject to protocol and legal eligibility. They are not wages, deposits, or guaranteed financial returns.
Understanding the Budget Shown in the App
The app presents an effective monthly relay budget rather than allowing a user to request any number they type. That budget reflects the most restrictive applicable condition at that moment, which can include:
- the user's claimable Karma balance;
- what the user has already requested in the month;
- the current per-user allowance;
- system-wide monthly capacity; and
- account eligibility or risk restrictions.
The internal calculation is deliberately not published as a gaming guide, but the user-facing principle is simple: the app and the submission service should agree on what can be requested.
For example, Alice may have a large total Karma balance because she has used HYFY for many months. Some of it may already have been spent on in-app utility, some may be utility-only, and part may exceed the current monthly allowance. Her relay screen therefore shows the amount that is presently eligible, not her lifetime Karma total.
What Happens After Submission
A submitted request reserves eligible Karma for the selected month; it does not immediately transfer HYFY. The month then moves through a controlled sequence:
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| Open | Eligible users may submit requests before the deadline |
| Closing | Revenue, participation, account eligibility, and requests are reconciled |
| Prepared | User allocations and proofs are generated from the finalized inputs |
| Review | Commitments and close evidence wait through the required challenge period |
| Active | Eligible users can retrieve proofs and claim on-chain |
| Completed or expired | Claims are settled, or the configured deadline has passed |
A month with no valid claimants follows an explicit no-claims outcome. A month with unresolved integrity issues stops rather than pretending to be complete.
Practical Claim Example
Bob links his Polygon wallet and completes identity verification. During the claim window, the app shows an available relay budget. He submits a smaller amount and receives a successful reservation response.
Assume the finalized claim pool contains 50,000 HYFY and all accepted requests total 10,000 eligible Karma. In this simplified example, each accepted Karma receives 5 HYFY:
| Claimant | Accepted Karma request | Share of requests | Final HYFY allocation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alice | 100 Karma | 1.0% | 500 HYFY |
| Bob | 50 Karma | 0.5% | 250 HYFY |
| Everyone else | 9,850 Karma | 98.5% | 49,250 HYFY |
| Total | 10,000 Karma | 100% | 50,000 HYFY |
This table explains proportional settlement, not the complete monthly calculation. The pool and accepted requests have already passed the private anti-abuse, participation, treasury, and close safeguards before this split is published.
After month-end, the backend includes Bob's finalized allocation in a Merkle tree. Once the review stage ends and the root is activated, Bob's app requests only his proof. The distributor contract checks that the wallet is linked to Bob's account identity, the proof matches the active monthly root, the claim has not already been used, the deadline is valid, and the funded pool can cover the amount.
If every check passes, HYFY is transferred from the funded claim pool to Bob's wallet and the claim is permanently marked as used. Replaying the same proof cannot produce a second payment.
When a Claim Can Be Delayed or Rejected
Common reasons include an incomplete identity check, an unconfirmed wallet link, a missed request or claim deadline, insufficient claimable Karma, a duplicate request identifier, an account-risk review, an inactive monthly root, or a paused contract.
Where fee sponsorship is available, the app may make the blockchain step feel like a normal claim button. Sponsorship does not weaken the proof checks and is not itself an entitlement; the user can still encounter provider, wallet, network, or sponsorship limits.