A channel that publishes nothing checkable is not stuck there. Two voluntary steps make its page carry more — and both prove transparency, not performance.

What is the ladder, in one paragraph?

Three positions, and a channel moves between them by choosing to.

At the bottom, a channel publishes nothing an outsider can check: analysis, results after the fact, or an invitation to a paid group. Its page carries reviews and reports and no numbers, and the catalogue says so plainly.

One step up, the channel opens its paid feed to us. Its closed signals get replayed exactly like public ones, and the page carries a measured record and the badge Private feed open. This step settles the words: there are no signals behind the paywall that we do not see.

One step further, the owner connects a read-only exchange API key. Now a real trading account is visible behind the posts, not just the posts, and the page carries Proof of trades. This step settles the money.

Why are those two separate steps rather than one?

Because they answer different objections, and a channel can pass the first and fail the second.

Opening the feed proves the record is complete — that the wins on display are not a selection from a larger set with the losses removed. It is the harder problem to fake and the more common thing to hide.

Connecting a key proves something else entirely: that the person posting is trading what they post. A channel can publish disciplined entries and trade nothing at all, or trade something completely different, and no amount of feed access would reveal it. The key closes that gap and nothing else does.

Neither step subsumes the other, so neither badge implies the other.

What do the badges not mean?

They do not mean the channel is good. Both badges mean transparency, not performance. A channel with both can lose money, and its page will show the losses in the same detail as the wins. That is what measuring instead of recommending looks like.

They cannot be bought. ChainRated sells visibility — placement, featured blocks, an outbound link. No paid tier includes a badge, implies one, or discounts one. This is the single line the business model is built not to cross: the moment trust is purchasable, every number on the site is worth nothing.

They are not our verdict on the channel. Each step is something the channel does. We publish what follows from it.

What happens if the access stops?

The badge disappears by itself, without anyone contacting us.

Both badges are held up by a live fact — an open feed we are actually reading, or a key that is actually valid — and both are checked continuously. Revoke our access to the paid channel and the first badge goes. Disable or expire the key and the second one goes.

This matters more than it sounds. A badge that outlives the access behind it would be the page lying on the channel's behalf, and it would decay in exactly the direction that flatters whoever stopped cooperating. So the rule is that a badge means "this is true now", never "this was true once".

For channel owners: what exactly do you give us?

For Private feed open: read access for one account of ours to your closed channel. We read it the way we read public feeds. Your subscribers are not contacted, your member list is not touched, and nothing from inside the channel is republished — only the replayed record of your signals appears on your page.

For Proof of trades: a read-only exchange API key. Three things about it are worth stating flatly, because they are the questions owners actually ask:

  • A key with trading or withdrawal permissions is refused at connection time. We accept read-only and nothing else.
  • Keys are encrypted before storage, and the secret is never displayed again after you submit it.
  • Your page shows that a live account is connected. It does not show your balance or your position sizes.

Both steps are reversible at any moment, by you, without asking us.

Why would a channel do any of this?

Because the alternative is being indistinguishable.

A reader looking at a page with no numbers cannot tell an honest operation with a paid group from one that has something to hide, and the page cannot help them: it has nothing to show. Every channel in that position looks the same, which is a bad deal for the good ones and a comfortable one for the rest.

The ladder is the way out of that pile, and it is deliberately open to everyone, including channels whose numbers will turn out to be unremarkable. Being measured and ordinary is a position no unverified channel can claim.