HOW PULSE MAKES A CLAIM
Methodology
Evidence before verdicts
Market Pulse records structured observations — probes, attempts, settlements — preserves their provenance in a hash-chained ledger, and applies the deterministic Assay. A grade is a concise reading of the record, never a substitute for it.
Grades and unknowns
| A | Verified payout received — first-party payout received. |
|---|---|
| B | Payout evidence recorded — payout evidence, receipt pending. |
| C | Live, payout unproven — live + accessible, unproven. |
| F | Failed or non-paying evidence — failure evidence on record. |
| ? | Insufficient evidence — insufficient evidence. |
Deterministic rules, in order
- a recent settlement received from a first-party or consented attempt yields A.
- a first-party receivable ledger (owed / claimed-pending / invoiced) yields B — real payout evidence, not a received payout.
- sustained failures or a completed no-response cohort beyond the published window yields F.
- credible third-party payout proof yields B.
- live, agent-accessible inventory without payout proof or failure evidence yields C.
- missing or conflicting observations yields Unknown with an explicit insufficiency reason.
Unknown is a valid published state. Lack of evidence is not proof of failure — a lane with missing or conflicting observations reports Unknown with its insufficiency reason, never a silent F.
Freshness
Every lane carries a freshness state derived from its last observation: fresh (≤24h), aging (≤7d), stale (≤30d), historical beyond that, or unknown when never observed.
Independence
Verification cannot be purchased. Money, sponsorship, and subscriptions cannot change grades, rank, confidence, or evidence. Sponsored placement, if it ever exists, is labelled and ranked below verdict order — never mixed into grades.
Corrections and disputes
A lane can submit a correction, dispute, new evidence, or clarification. History is never rewritten: the original evidence, the correction event, and timestamps all remain visible.
What Pulse does not do
No customer credential storage. No CAPTCHA, KYC, or access-control bypass. No marketplace, escrow, or autonomous application service. No fabricated probes, listings, or payouts.
Methodology version 1.1 · dataset seed-research · snapshot 2026-09-21