The Receipts Index

How We Grade

The method behind Did It Actually Pay? Public on purpose, so you can hold every entry, and us, to the same standard.

Real numbers. No hype. Receipts.

A referee that will not show its rulebook is just an opinion with a scoreboard. So here is ours, in full. If we ever grade an entry in a way this page would not allow, that is a mistake you are entitled to point out, and we will fix it in the open.

The one job

The record answers a single question, and refuses every other one: did a specific, dated, checkable promise happen on its stated terms by its stated time? It does not ask whether something is a good idea, a good investment, or a scam. It does not predict. It compares a promise, written down on a known date, against what the official record later shows.

What qualifies as a promise

An entry can only exist if the promise contains something testable. That discipline is what keeps the record honest and keeps us out of opinion.

Qualifies: "We will ship feature X by [date]." "Backed one-to-one and redeemable." "Deposits are insured." "This will reach [number] by [year]." Each of these can be checked against a later fact.

Does not qualify, and is never entered: "We will revolutionize finance." "The future is on-chain." Vague ambition has no test, so it has no place here. Ruling it out of scope is itself a quiet statement about hype.

The shape of every entry

Every entry is the same three parts. If it cannot be built in this shape, it does not run.

The promise. Who said it, in their official capacity, quoted or tightly paraphrased from their own public statement, filing, keynote, or marketing, with the date and a link to the primary record. We archive promises, because companies delete their own.
The receipt. What actually happened, stated as dated facts only, each one sourced to a primary record. If the only source is journalism, we label it as secondary or we wait for a primary document.
The verdict. One of five tiers, applied mechanically by comparing the promise to the receipt.

The five verdicts

Paid

The stated thing happened, on the stated terms, by the stated or a reasonable time. We use this tier prominently. A record that never says Paid is not a referee.

Partial

Something shipped or was returned, but materially less, later, or on changed terms. The entry states exactly which part fell short.

Did not pay

The record shows the stated thing did not happen and will not: cancelled, not returned, contradicted by a court or regulator finding. The tier grades the promise, not the person.

Too early

The clock is still running. Every Too Early entry names a public check date on which we will re-grade, whatever the outcome. Writing the promise down before the outcome is known is the entire point of the record.

Withdrawn

The promiser formally retracted or restated the promise before its deadline. Recorded neutrally, with both dates. Honest retraction is not punished.

The repeatability test. The rubric passes only if a stranger, handed the two source documents, would reach the same verdict we did. If a verdict needs judgment beyond comparing document A to document B, we narrow the claim until it does not, or we drop the entry.

The sourcing standard

Receipts are built from primary records, in this order of preference:

Court dockets and regulator orders or filings.
The promiser's own subsequent public statements and filings.
Official market data, such as a named price history.
Major-outlet reporting, used only when a primary record is not yet available, and always labeled as secondary.

Every factual sentence in a receipt must be attributable to a document you can open. If we cannot link it, we do not write it.

The lines we do not cross

These are not style choices. They are what makes the record trustworthy.

We grade the promise, never the person. We do not call anyone a scammer, a fraud, a criminal, or a liar in our own voice. Where a court or regulator has made a finding, we report that finding and attribute it to them, and we stop there.
We take no money from anyone we grade. No payment, sponsorship, advertising, or affiliate relationship from any company that appears in the record, past or future. Our income comes only from readers and members. This is the one rule a competitor with a sales team cannot copy.
We let you conclude. An entry ends at the verdict. No advice, no "avoid this," no "you should." The disclosure on every page: educational record only, not investment, financial, or legal advice.
Right of response. Any graded party may submit primary documentation and we will update the entry within a stated window.
Public corrections. When we get something wrong, we do not quietly delete it. We correct it in the open, dated, and leave the record of the fix. A visible corrections trail is itself a receipt.

Why the record is worth building slowly

A dated record cannot be back-filled, because time only runs one way. Anyone can write, after a collapse, that the collapse happened. No one can retroactively create the entry that says we logged this promise, on this date, before the outcome, and committed to a check date. That is why we would rather publish two bulletproof entries a month, forever, than twenty in a launch and silence after. The value is not in any single entry. It is in a long record that was still standing when the check dates came due.

Educational record only, not investment, financial, or legal advice. Verdicts grade specific dated claims against the public record and are not statements about the character or intent of any person or company. We hold no position in, and take no compensation from, anything named in the record.