Exit a bond early with Fireblocks

01 / 04 · Before you exit

What happens when you early exit.

Who: you, together with whoever in your organization signs off on the decision. This is not a routine step, so treat it as a decision your organization makes rather than one you make at the keyboard.

You can exit early whenever you choose to. When you do, you get back every satoshi you locked, less the Bitcoin network fee, and you give up the rewards for the rest of the term. Your STX is the one thing that does not come back early: it stays locked until the bond reaches the end of its original term.

What you get back, and what stays locked

• You announce your exit with a Stacks transaction, and from that moment you stop earning for the rest of the term.
• Once your announcement is on chain, you send the locked Bitcoin back to your own vault, using a co-signature from the early-exit signer. All of it comes back to you, less the Bitcoin network fee.
• The early-exit signer is a service run for the protocol, and it sits outside your Fireblocks workspace. You can only get that co-signature once your announcement has settled on chain.
• Your STX stays where it is until the bond reaches the end of its original term. Leaving early frees your Bitcoin, not your Stacks, so please plan around that before you start.
• You cannot undo the announcement, and you cannot pick the bond back up if you change your mind.
• If you have earned rewards that you have not claimed yet, please ask your Stacks Endowment contact how to handle them before you announce.
• These steps cover bonds backed by native Bitcoin. If you bonded sBTC instead, you leave through a different action, and your Stacks Endowment contact can walk you through it.

Check how close the bond is to maturity

1. Open your enrolled vault account and select Manage bond, then look at Unlock height and Blocks until unlock.
2. If the bond is nearly finished, it is usually worth waiting it out. At maturity you get your Bitcoin back without announcing anything, and you keep every reward you earned along the way.

Before you begin

• Your organization has approved the early exit.
• The Fireblocks x Stacks app is open and authenticated, with the enrolled vault account visible.
• The vault account holds enough STX to pay the Stacks transaction fee for the announcement.
• Raw Signing and the Transaction Authorization Policy rule that allows it are still in place for this vault account.
• The approvers required by your Transaction Authorization Policy are available.
• Your Stacks Endowment contact knows you are exiting early.

02 / 04 · Announce the exit

Announce the early exit on Stacks.

Who: the operator, plus every approver required by your Transaction Authorization Policy.

When you announce, you are telling the protocol that you are leaving. This is the point of no return in these steps.

1. Open the enrolled vault account and select Manage bond.
2. Check the position against your records and your Enrollment Record. You will see the bond index, locked BTC, locked STX, unlock height, and blocks until unlock.
3. Select Announce Early Exit and authenticate with Touch ID.
4. Approve the signing request in the Fireblocks mobile app or through your workspace's automatic approver, per your Transaction Authorization Policy.
5. Wait until you see Stacking Submitted. Copy the transaction hash, save it with your records, then select Done.
6. Check that your position now reads Early exit announced.
7. Open Activity in the sidebar and wait until you see the Announce Early Exit entry marked Confirmed with a View on Explorer link. Then open the transaction hash on a Stacks explorer and check that it reads Success.

03 / 04 · Recover the Bitcoin

Bring your Bitcoin back to your vault.

Who: the operator, plus every approver required by your Transaction Authorization Policy.

You send the locked Bitcoin yourself, using a co-signature from the early-exit signer. That co-signature only becomes available once your announcement has settled on chain, so there is nothing to do here until it has.

1. Select Complete Early Exit. If your announcement is not confirmed yet, you will not be able to get the co-signature, so give it a moment and try again.
2. Check that the destination is your vault account's own Bitcoin address. You will find it already filled in for you, so please do not type an address by hand.
3. Leave the fee as you find it unless the Bitcoin network is busy enough to need more. If you see a warning that the fee looks unusually high, bring it back down.
4. Check You receive. It should match everything you locked, less the network fee.
5. Check that Early-exit signer network reads mainnet.
6. Select Send BTC, authenticate with Touch ID, and approve the signing request per your Transaction Authorization Policy.
7. Wait until you see that your Bitcoin transaction has gone out. Copy the transaction hash, save it with your records, then select Done.

04 / 04 · Verify the exit

Check that your Bitcoin arrived.

Who: you. You are not finished until your Bitcoin transaction confirms.

By now you should have both transactions in your own records and on chain. Treat your vault account page as the reliable view of the position. You may still see the bond listed as Active on the Staking page, with Lock spent under BTC committed, and that is expected rather than a problem.

1. On your vault account page, check that your BTC Bond Position reads Reclaimed.
2. Check that your Bitcoin balance has gone up by the full amount you locked, less the network fee. You can compare it against the BTC allocation in your Enrollment Record.
3. Leave your STX alone. It stays locked until the bond reaches the end of its original term and then unlocks on its normal schedule, so there is nothing for you to do. If you want the exact date, your Stacks Endowment contact can confirm it.
4. Keep the announcement transaction ID and the Bitcoin transaction ID with your records.
5. Let your Stacks Endowment contact know that you are out.

If something goes wrong