“The chain is the auditor” is a statement about where trust sits. It shouldn’t sit with us. The practice is built so you never have to take our word for anything.
In practice, it means four things.
- Positions are attestable on-chain. When the book runs with real money, anyone can check that the positions exist and match what we report. How to verify them is published when the book goes live. (Attestation, on-chain.)
- Figures re-derive from public data. Every number we publish comes with its source, so someone who doesn’t trust us can recompute it.
- Designs are sealed first. What a study tests and expects is fixed before it runs, and published with it. You can check the results against the question that was set, not one chosen afterward. (Sealed design.)
- The audit is adversarial and on the record. An independent auditor, with no ties to the maintainers, tries to break each study. Every objection and every response is published, including the objections we could not answer. (Audit trail.)
What the chain can’t audit
A blockchain can show that a position exists. It can’t show whether a model is any good, whether costs were counted in full, or whether a study was designed well. Those need people. That is what the sealed designs, the audit trail and the weekly drift report are for.
There is also a gap in time. Before the book runs with real money, there is nothing on-chain to check. Until then, the studies, the sealed designs and the audit trail carry the weight.