Sorting out the confusion of claiming ONG after ONT mainnet swap.

I, like money others, have been doing a little struggling to understand how the ONG claim process is supposed to work in the new ONTO wallet. So I thought I would jot down my experiences so others could avoid some of the troubles I have been seeing and experiencing. If you don’t like long boring internet stories, jump to the bottom for the TL;DR.

I was lucky, when I did my swap they had a grace period in which they hadn’t yet introduced the 0.01 ONG fee. I had pre-accumulated some amount of ONG from the NEP-5 token sitting in my NEO wallet. So at the time of the swap, all went smoothly and I had a little stash of ONG that I could immediately claim, and I now had the ability to make transactions.

So, when they put the fee in place I saw someone post that they needed 0.01 ONG and committed to pay it back, I figured I would help that guy out. I didn’t have much, but I could spare that little bit and if I get burned it’s probably not worth much, so why not.

I sent 0.01 ONG along to a fella in need and it turns out, he couldn’t claim his ONG because it wasn’t unlocked. The ONG receiving transaction in his wallet didn’t unlock his supposedly claimable ONG. OK, I guess getting ONG doesn’t count as a transaction because it didn’t cost you anything. Seems a little odd, but so be it.

More surprisingly, me sending him ONG and paying a transaction fee in ONG, isn’t considered a transaction for the purposes of unlocking ONG! Me paying a transaction fee isn’t a transaction? Really?

So, we do a little brainstorming and he uses the 0.01 ONG to send 1 ONT to me. This guy right here is pretty top notch. Now not only didn’t he get his ONG, but he sends me 1 ONT for my troubles. Well, that ONT transaction seems to have unlocked his ONG, but he doesn’t have any ONG now to claim his ONG. So he is stuck. Now I send him 0.02 more ONG just to be sure. This then leaves him with enough ONG to claim his now unlocked ONG. All is well with the world…except for the fact that we have burned up 0.03 ONG in transaction fees sorting this all out.

It also turns out that me receiving the ONT also seemed to unlock my ONG. In further fiddling around it became clear sending yourself ONT will also unlock your ONG. But sending yourself, or someone else, or receiving ONG does not.

So the official advice of needed a transaction to unlock your ONG really should be….you need to make an ONT transaction to unlock your ONG. So, if you are desperate and you need to ask the internet for 0.01 ONG, don’t…it won’t help. You have to ask for at least 0.02 ONG. Then when you get it you have to send yourself 1 ONT to unlock your claimable ONG at a transaction fee of 0.01 ONG. Then finally you have to make a claim for your now unlocked ONG by spending another 0.01 ONG.

And to add insult to injury, if you promised to pay them back, you better make sure your claimable ONG is at least 0.06, because you will need to spend 0.01 to send back the 0.02 you borrowed plus another 0.01 to cover their transaction fee (0.04 total). Then you need to keep 0.02 for sending 1 ONT to yourself in the future at a transaction fee 0.01 and another 0.01 for your transaction fee on your claim.

TL;DR:

1. Only ONT transactions unlock ONG, receiving ONG won’t.
2. ONG claims true cost is 0.02 ONG if you need to send yourself a transaction first.
3. Borrow at least 0.02 ONG if you need to borrow and don’t bother claiming a balance of less than 0.06 ONG if you plan to pay back your ONG loan.