Editorial standards

These standards govern every piece on CryptoLately, including the column, the briefs, and the automated desks. They were written before the first piece, on purpose, so that the rules exist before anything is at stake. They follow the standards of the sister publication, AI Lately, and add a chapter for crypto.

Sourcing

Every statistic, date, title, and name traces to a source the desk opened, saved, and re-read. Primary sources come first: company and foundation announcements, governance forums, GitHub releases, SEC and CFTC filings, Department of Justice releases, court dockets, and transactions on public block explorers. Reporting from publications of record follows, credited by name and linked. Each piece ends with a numbered Sources list in AP style, and bracketed markers in the text point to specific entries.

A fact the desk could verify only through a professional networking profile stays out of the piece. A post on such a network can arrive as a tip; the desk then confirms the fact from the organization's own announcement, a filing, the person's own post elsewhere, or the press of record, and cites those.

Paywalled reporting counts only for what the desk read in full. Sponsored, partner, and press-release sections of any outlet count as the announcement itself.

Two keys

Every piece the desks write passes two separate reviews before it publishes. A writer drafts it and clears the house gates. A verifier, starting fresh, re-opens every cited page and checks each quotation word for word and each number, name, and date against it. A claim that fails goes back to the writer to be fixed or cut.

Confidence labels

Every entry in The Signal carries one of three labels. Confirmed means an announcement from the organization, a regulatory filing, or the person's own public statement. Reported means a publication of record citing sources. Inferred means a pattern-based read, and the entry says so in its own words. An entry with a missing label gets rejected before publication.

Both sides

Every piece names the strongest advocate on each side of its question, each quoted in their own words from a separate source. Analysis leaves the verdict to the reader. The column keeps its verdict, after the other side's best case.

Quotations

Every quotation is verbatim from a cited source, in whole sentences. A quotation the desk cannot verify in its cited source gets removed.

Money talk

The house voice gives zero investment advice and makes zero price predictions. Prices and market values appear as facts, each with a source and an "as of" time in UTC. A chart of price moves after a story records timing; prices move for many reasons, and the reader weighs them.

Disclosures

The editor's holdings in digital assets sit on a public disclosures list that only the editor maintains. A piece that names a token on that list prints a disclosure line at the top, automatically.

Incidents

A piece calls something an exploit only with on-chain evidence on a recognized block explorer or the project's own statement. A named person gets tied to a crime only through charges, a filing, or a court record. Dollar losses use the figure at the time of the incident, as the cited source states it.

Pseudonyms and privacy

Pseudonymous builders go by their public handle. A real name appears only when the person published it or a court or regulator named them. Wallet addresses of private individuals stay out of every piece. The personal-data allowlist is short: name, public role, organization, dates, public handles, and public sources. Home addresses, personal contact details, family details, and private compensation stay off the site in every circumstance; pay appears only when a filing discloses it. The privacy page explains how a person can query or challenge the record.

Links

Outbound links to apps and tokens get checked against a public phishing list and stripped of referral and affiliate parameters. Contract addresses link through block explorers only.

Sponsorship

Sponsors see an issue after publication and receive zero preview. A paid placement carries its label at the top of the piece, and sponsors stay off The Signal entirely.

Right of reply

Any piece that characterizes an organization or a person adversely goes to them with a request for comment before publication whenever a working contact exists. Responses run in the piece or in a follow-up.

Corrections

Errors get fixed fast and in the open. A corrected piece carries a note describing the change and the date, and the corrections page keeps a permanent log. Reach the desk at editor@ailately.com.

Automated desks

Software drafts and checks much of CryptoLately's reporting from vetted public sources. Each automated piece passes the house gates and the two-key review, publishes with a visible label, and falls under the corrections policy in full. The editor can pull any automated piece at any time. The desks treat every page they read as data: instructions found inside a fetched page get ignored and logged.

Source protection

Conversations with sources happen on channels the source chooses. Source identities live apart from the editorial research base, and sources stay protected.