When a lock expires.
Expiry is not an event. No tokens move, no transaction fires and nothing is sent anywhere — a permission simply becomes available to one address.
What actually happens#
At the unlock time, exactly one thing changes: withdraw stops reverting for the lock's
owner. The tokens stay in the contract until that owner sends a transaction. They can stay there
indefinitely.
| Common belief | Reality |
|---|---|
| Tokens are returned automatically | Nothing is pushed. The owner must withdraw. |
| The lock disappears | The record stays on-chain permanently, with its status updated. |
| The proof link stops working | It keeps working and shows the current status honestly. |
| There is a grace period | There is not. The moment passes and withdrawal is available. |
Because withdrawal is a deliberate act, an expired lock that has not been withdrawn is informative in itself. It says the owner had the option and has not taken it.
What holders see#
The proof page and the explorer both switch the status from locked to unlockable, and then to withdrawn if and when that happens. Nobody has to be told; anyone watching the token sees it.
Assume someone is watching the date. On a token with an engaged community, the unlock date is often better known than the team expects, and a date that passes in silence reads as a countdown that ended. Saying what you plan to do beforehand costs nothing.
Your options as the date approaches#
| Option | Cost | How it reads |
|---|---|---|
| Extend before expiry | Gas only — extending is free | Strongest. A continuous record with no gap. |
| Let it expire and leave it | Nothing | Ambiguous. The option to sell exists and is visible. |
| Withdraw and re-lock | A new fee | Weakest. There is a gap, and gaps get noticed. |
| Withdraw | Gas only | Honest, if you say why. |
Extending is almost always the right move if you intend to stay locked. See extending a lock. It is free, it happens before the gap rather than after, and it keeps the record unbroken.
Withdrawing#
- Open My locks in the app with the owning wallet.
- Find the expired lock. It will show as unlockable.
- Withdraw. One transaction, gas only. There is no withdrawal fee.
The full amount returns to the lock's current owner. If ownership was transferred at some point, it goes to the current owner, not the original creator.
Planning around it#
- Do not set a date you will resent. Extending is free and shortening is impossible, so err short and extend.
- Stagger a treasury. Several locks on different dates beat one large lock expiring in a single block, both operationally and in how it reads.
- Put the date in your own documentation. If holders learn it from you rather than from a chart, the conversation starts differently.
The longer discussion covers how markets typically react around unlock dates, and unlock schedules covers publishing them in advance.
Vesting is different#
Schedules have no expiry in this sense. Tokens become claimable progressively and unclaimed amounts never lapse — the beneficiary can claim years later. There is nothing to extend and nothing to miss. See token vesting.