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Criterion

Locked at release

A target you can move is a ratio you can fake. The gap between “trust me” and “check it” is a timestamp.

A screenshot of a great reward-to-risk ratio proves only that an image exists. It says nothing reliable about when the levels were set, or whether the stop was widened and the target trimmed after the trade went the wrong way. And once the levels can move, every ratio computed from them is suspect.

A cryptographic timestamp removes the ambiguity. The pick takes a single SHA-256 over the call's entry, target, stop, grade and emit time and writes the resulting fingerprint into a Bitcoin block through OpenTimestamps as the setup goes live. A hash is a one-way fingerprint: change any field afterward — entry, stop, target or grade — and you get an entirely different fingerprint that no longer matches the public receipt. So a confirmed receipt proves the exact levels, and the reward-to-risk they imply, existed in that form before the trade resolved. Because the grade rides inside that fingerprint, a setup cannot be quietly bumped up after it wins.

How a graded setup is locked before the market resolves itFlow diagram: a trade setup is published with its entry, target, stop and A-to-D grade; the reward-to-risk those levels imply is fixed; a SHA-256 of the fields is anchored to a Bitcoin block at release; later anyone re-hashes the published setup and confirms it matches the on-chain receipt, proving the levels and the grade existed before the trade resolved.RELEASE TIME → (before the market can settle it)A match proves the reward-to-risk and the grade were set in advance.1 PUBLISHentry / stop/ target+ A-to-D grade2 PRICE ITreward vs riskis fixed bythose levels3 ANCHORSHA-256 writtento a Bitcoinblock at release4 RE-CHECKanyone re-hashes+ it matchesthe receipt
Because the grade is folded into the fingerprint along with the reward-against-risk it encodes, neither the levels nor the conviction can be touched up once the candle prints.

Walk one setup through it

Picture an illustrative setup (a made-up example for the walkthrough, not a specific real trade): long an index ETF, entry 100.00, stop 98.00, target 106.00, grade B, release 14:32:05 UTC. Those levels imply a 3:1 ratio. At release the desk runs the exact fields through the hash and anchors the fingerprint to Bitcoin. The trade resolves later that session. Weeks on, you take the published setup, recompute the fingerprint from those same fields, and confirm it matches the receipt against a block mined before the trade closed. Had the stop been widened from 98.00 to 97.00 after the fact — turning a 3:1 into a 2:1 — the fingerprint would not match, and you would know.

The point is not the numbers; it is the order of events. A Bitcoin block stamps the receipt with a time, and that time lands ahead of the result. That is what “locked at release” means, and no amount of polish substitutes for it.

Where the field falls short

What failing this test looks like

Most sources fail this test not through fraud but through architecture: where the levels live, nobody can pin down when they were set.

  • Chat-room call-outs. The operator owns the post history, so a stop or target can be added after the move, edited in place, or deleted with no trace. The levels fail locked at release outright — and usually the full record too, because the losing call-outs simply scroll away.
  • Auto-copy rooms. More checkable than a chat, since a platform tracks participant results — but the individual levels are rarely graded and rarely fixed per setup, so they fail the grade is measured and locked at release even where a rough record exists.
  • Social-feed callers. Posts can be deleted or boosted at will, and revenue often comes from broker affiliate links, so a caller tends to fail almost every test at once — the levels are stated, locked at release and paid by you together.
  • Re-poster / aggregator sites. They republish other people's levels without checking them, so every honesty gap in the original is carried forward. They fail the full record is shown by inheritance.

This is why the guide judges a field rather than one product: fixing the levels in public before the outcome is exactly the test most of the field cannot clear, which is what makes clearing it worth paying for.

This is the mechanism that converts a record of ratios from something merely impressive into something a stranger can audit. To run the check yourself, see how to read a ratio; for what a full record must also contain, see a re-runnable record.

Keep reading
A re-runnable recordThe timestamp proves one setup; this proves the whole history.Grades that are measuredWhy the grade belongs sealed into the fingerprint.Common risk-reward mistakesMoving the stop after entry, and other ratio-killers.How we judge a sourceWhere this test sits among the five.