What Our Grades Measure Today, and What They Do Not

Why publish this at all

Rating products tend to describe their methodology in aspirational terms: the full list of things the model considers in principle, with no indication of which are actually wired up. That is how you end up trusting a number that turns out to be three price columns in a trenchcoat. We would rather be boring and specific.

How the numbers are scaled

Every pillar score and the composite itself are percentile ranks within the rated universe, not marks out of a fixed total. A 90 means "ahead of 90% of rated coins on this measure". We started with absolute thresholds and abandoned them, because real market data almost never reached the upper ones: two thirds of the universe landed on the same grade and the top bands were mathematically unreachable. A scale where three of seven grades never appear is not a scale.

The tradeoff is that grades are relative. In a weak market the least-weak coin still tops the table. We would rather state that plainly than imply an absolute standard the data cannot support.

What is measured right now

Fundamentals (35%) blends two things: position in the market-cap table, and supply dilution, meaning the share of maximum supply already circulating. A coin with most of its supply already issued has less future emission overhanging holders than one with a fraction released. Coins with no supply cap are scored neutrally with a slight caution, since uncapped emission is a real but not automatically disqualifying property.

On-chain health (25%) currently measures one thing: 24-hour trading volume relative to market cap. It is a liquidity and genuine-usage proxy that separates actively traded networks from thin books.

Momentum (20%) blends trailing 7-day and 30-day returns, weighted toward the week but requiring the month to agree before the score gets strong. One hot week against a bad month nets out to a middling reading, which is the intent.

Risk (20%, inverted) combines 24-hour price volatility with drawdown depth below the all-time high.

What is not measured yet

The on-chain pillar name currently overstates its reach. Active address growth, holder concentration, exchange net flow, and staking ratios are all genuine on-chain measures and none of them are in the score today. What is there is a market-structure proxy.

On fundamentals, treasury runway, protocol fee revenue, and whether value accrues to the token rather than a foundation are absent. On risk, unlock schedules, insider concentration, and audit status are absent. Each of these requires a data source beyond public market feeds, and each will be added as its own pillar upgrade, announced when it lands.

What this means for how much to trust a grade

Reasonably, for what it is. The inputs that are live are real, refreshed every fifteen minutes, and applied identically to every coin in the universe with no analyst override and no way for a project to influence its own score. The grade is a fast, consistent, mechanical read on market structure and recent behaviour.

It is not yet a fundamental analysis of a protocol business. A coin can score well here and still have a treasury running dry or an unlock cliff next month, because we cannot currently see either. Use the grade to narrow a hundred coins down to a handful worth real diligence, then do the real diligence.

How you will know when this changes

Each coin page lists the exact input behind every pillar score. When a new data source goes live, that panel changes to name it, and this article gets updated. If the panel still says volume relative to market cap, then that is still all the on-chain pillar knows.