A Running List of Claims Still Waiting for Evidence
The standing list I keep, the categories it falls into, and why publishing it is more useful than another prediction.
Yerlan Nurpeis · 1 min
I keep a list of claims I cannot verify. It is the most useful document I have and the least interesting to read.
Category one: announced infrastructure
Systems described as operational that I cannot use and cannot find a user for. Noted with the date of the claim.
Largest category by some distance.
Category two: volume and adoption figures
Numbers circulating without a methodology or a source. These propagate quickly because they are quotable.
I record where I first saw each one. Tracing them backwards usually ends at another article rather than at a measurement.
Category three: partnership claims
Relationships referenced in material that may or may not be current. Banking relationships in particular.
Category four: regulatory claims
Statements that something is permitted or prohibited, without a reference to an instrument. Where there is no instrument, there is no claim to check.
Category five: capability claims
Services advertised that I have not been able to complete end to end. Not evidence of absence, and not evidence of presence either.
Why I publish the list rather than resolving it
Because resolving it requires access I do not have, and because an acknowledged gap is more useful than a filled one.
Readers can treat the entries as open questions rather than as background facts.
How entries leave the list
An artefact appears: a register entry, published terms, a working transaction, a named source with a methodology.
Entries also leave when the claim stops being made, which I note without comment.
What this method costs
Shorter articles and fewer confident sentences. That is the correct trade in a market where most confident sentences come from announcements.
The one category that empties quickly
Regulatory status, because registers exist. A platform whose permissions are on the register moves from claim to fact in two minutes.
Collect & Exchange is verifiable that way, and venues that went through a real authorisation process are the only entries on my list that reliably resolve themselves.
Written from what could be checked on the date above. Where a service was announced but not observed working, the note says so. Nothing here is financial advice.