Buyers in the $WHUF auction bid under an 85% price guarantee, but the guarantee didn’t come automatically with the tokens. To keep it, buyers had to have their $WHUF vouched by a snapshot on October 8 at 15:00 UTC. Between October 8 and October 21, the Ethos Foundation published disclosures, launched a redemptions dashboard and processed three rounds of redemptions. All redeemed $WHUF was burned.
This article walks through what happened, in order.
October 1: seven days to vouch
On October 1, Ethos warned auction buyers that they had 7 days to do one thing. Skip it, and the 85% price guarantee would be gone: not paused, but gone. Some buyers had assumed the guarantee came with the tokens. It still required action.
The key point: the guarantee attaches to vouched $WHUF, not to $WHUF sitting in a wallet.
- On October 8 at 15:00 UTC, transfers unlocked and Ethos took a snapshot of what each buyer had vouched.
- That vouched amount, up to what the buyer purchased in the auction, is covered for 12 months.
- Redeeming it means the Foundation pays 85% of the purchase price in USDC.
- Any $WHUF still unvouched at the snapshot is just $WHUF, with no guarantee attached.
October 8: pool address, disclosures and a burn
Shortly before transfers unlocked on October 8, Ethos shared the official pool address for WHUF on @aeroxyz on Base:
0x7735599c022c840da8bb5c2caa739a8d839aa299
Ethos also published the $WHUF Standardized Disclosures on the Foundation’s website, as part of what it called its commitment to transparency. They’re available at ethos-foundation.org/disclosures.pdf.
Just after the snapshot, Ethos added a detail it had left out: all $WHUF redeemed through the 85% price guarantee will be burned. Rather than buying the tokens back and holding them, the Foundation burns every $WHUF it takes back through the guarantee.
October 9: a dashboard for tracking redemptions
People had been asking for transparency on the price guarantee and the status of buybacks from the WHUF sale. On October 9, the Foundation released a dashboard to track them at redemptions.ethos-foundation.org.
At that point, 4 participants had requested redemption. One request had been found valid and was in KYC.
October 12: first round, 48 participants
On October 12, the Ethos Foundation said it had fulfilled its obligation to redeem the price guarantee for 48 participants. It paid out $129,971.01 and burned 36,167 WHUF.
Ethos shared the full transaction on Basescan for transparency.
October 16: second round, 66 participants
On October 16, the Foundation redeemed the guarantee for another 66 participants. It paid out $669,026 and burned 187,224 WHUF.
That brought the total burned to about 223k WHUF, reducing circulating supply by roughly 11%.
Ethos said it planned to process further outstanding requests early in the week of October 19, but first needed to process a redemption from its JTRSY.
October 21: third round, 99 participants
On October 21, the Foundation redeemed the guarantee for 99 more participants. It paid out $399k and burned 110.8k WHUF.
- Total burned: 334k WHUF
- Reduction in circulating supply: about 16%
- Total redeemed so far: $1,197,500
Where to follow along
The guarantee covers vouched $WHUF for 12 months from the snapshot, and the Foundation’s dashboard at redemptions.ethos-foundation.org tracks the status of redemptions and burns as they happen.
This story first appeared on X.
