I recently went through the process of unstaking my DOT and ACA tokens via the Acala dApp—and hit a few unexpected snags.

Unstaked DOT didn’t show up in my wallet.

ACA tokens appeared “available” on Acala, but “locked” in Talisman.

After reaching out to Acala support (who were incredibly helpful), here’s what I learned:

✅ When unstaking on Acala, you need to manually claim your tokens after the unbonding period ends.

✅ DOT needs to be bridged to the Polkadot relay chain before sending to an exchange.

✅ ACA can often be sent directly to supported exchanges—no bridging required.

✅ Talisman Wallet is a great alternative to Polkadot.js if you're looking for a better UX.

In the end, everything was resolved—and I learned a lot about the flow between Acala, wallets, and the Polkadot ecosystem.