Ostium will repay 3,321 wallets in full when its recovery portal opens Wednesday, closing out the smallest claims from the $23.8 million exploit that hit the perpetuals trading protocol, according to the recovery plan announced by the project.

The structure draws a hard line at $1,000. Every wallet that lost $1,000 or less receives its entire balance back, no questions asked. That cohort accounts for 3,321 addresses — the overwhelming majority of affected users by count, though a small fraction of the total loss.

The remaining 345 wallets present a harder problem. Together they carry at least 86% of the $23.8 million loss, and the plan forces a choice on each of them. Option one: accept a flat $1,000 payment and walk away. Option two: forgo the immediate payout and hold a pro-rata claim on whatever funds Ostium has not yet recovered.

That decision is not symmetric. A wallet that lost $50,000 and takes the $1,000 payment recovers 2% of its position and surrenders any future claim. A wallet that opts for the pro-rata route keeps exposure to the recovery process but waits, potentially for a long time, and receives only a share of what comes back rather than a guaranteed sum. The plan effectively transfers recovery risk onto the largest creditors, letting them price their own patience.

For the long tail of retail users, the outcome is clean. Full repayment for wallets under the threshold removes any need to monitor the process, file additional paperwork, or gamble on future recoveries. It also simplifies Ostium's operational burden: 3,321 claims resolve automatically the moment the portal opens.

The 86% figure is the number that defines the protocol's remaining exposure. If most of the 345 large wallets elect the pro-rata claim, Ostium carries a contingent liability tied to the unrecovered portion of the $23.8 million. If they take the $1,000 payments instead, the immediate cash outlay is modest — 345 payments of $1,000 — but the affected users absorb the loss almost entirely.

The tiered design reflects a common pattern in post-exploit recoveries: pay small claimants in full to preserve user trust and reduce administrative load, while converting large claimants into residual stakeholders of the recovery effort. Ostium has not closed the door on recovering additional funds, and the pro-rata option exists precisely because that possibility remains live.

Wednesday's portal launch marks the first concrete distribution milestone since the incident. How the 345 wallets split between the flat payment and the pro-rata claim will determine the size of the residual creditor pool — and how long Ostium's balance sheet stays tied to the unrecovered remainder of the $23.8 million.