Note: On December 3 2025, changes were made to the Session Community Rewards Program following feedback from the community. Those changes are now reflected in this article.
Earlier this year, exceptional contributors to the Session testnet were rewarded with Session Tokens as part of the Testnet Incentive Program. At the time, it was said that there would be follow-up rewards for those who continued contributing to mainnet and supporting the Session ecosystem.
Those rewards are now being calculated and distributed as part of the Session Community Rewards Program. A maximum of 400,000 SESH is available as part of this program.
Am I eligible for the Session Community Rewards Program?
Only community members who received rewards as part of the Testnet Incentive Program are eligible for the Session Community Rewards Program.
All Ethereum addresses and vesting contract addresses from the testnet rewards have been automatically checked for the following network activity between October 21 2025 and November 21 2025:
- Staking to an active Solo Node
- Staking to and operating an active multi-contributor node
- Staking to someone else’s active multi-contributor node
If your associated recipient address(es) from the Testnet Incentive Program also participated in the above network activity within the date range provided, you will be automatically eligible for the Session Community Rewards Program.
How are rewards calculated?
A sum total of SESH staked by each address or associated vesting contract address is calculated. In order to provide additional rewards for those in the community who put in the effort to set up, maintain, and operate their own nodes, a bonus weighting is applied to stakes associated with Solo Nodes or operator stakers of Multi-Contributor Nodes.
After the bonus is applied, a network activity value is produced for each address, allowing rewards to be proportionally divided among (and automatically distributed to) all eligible participants.
Note that the value is not based on the amount of time that you were staked (between October 21 and November 21). Rather, the system assesses whether you were staked at any time during the date range. No weighting is applied to the amount of time staked.
When is the snapshot taken?
A snapshot of network activity between October 21, 2025 and November 21, 2025 has been taken. All rewards will be calculated and distributed based on the network activity in this date range.
How are the rewards being distributed?
Initially, 300,000 SESH will be automatically distributed to eligible addresses proportional to their network activity value.
The remaining 100,000 SESH is reserved to ensure eligible participants of the Community Rewards Program who are not identified using the automatic system are still able to receive rewards. These participants will have 60 days to manually claim eligibility for the program. The final date to manually claim eligibility is February 1, 2026.
This is done as it is not possible for all cases to be covered using automated systems, so some portion of the total rewards must be reserved for eligible (but hard to spot) recipients. For example, this may apply to users who received rewards as part of the Testnet Incentive Program, but consolidated these rewards under a new address, thus missing out on automatic detection.
If you believe you are eligible for the Community Rewards Program but do not receive automated rewards, please reach out via the Session Token Community on Discord.
At the conclusion of this 60 day period, if there remains any unclaimed SESH (from the total 400,000 allocated to the program), it will be proportionally distributed to eligible addresses. If you are identified as eligible via the automatic or manual processes, you will automatically receive this ‘second wave’ of rewards.
When will the rewards be distributed?
Automatic rewards will be distributed before December 7, 2025. Manual rewards will be distributed on a case by case basis. The distribution of the second wave of rewards (at the termination of the 60 day manual claim period) is to be determined.