Altitude Intelligence · methodology
How the Altitude Production Ledger works: statuses, evidence grades, and the Altitude Intelligence Index
The definitions, evidence rules, cohort gates, and formulas behind the Production Ledger and AII.
Published · Updated · Evidence reviewed · Revision 6eae64413231
Methodology v1 — 2026-07-19. 1 When a definition or formula changes, the version changes and the prior specification remains in the claim history. 1
The Altitude Production Ledger tracks institutional blockchain and tokenization initiatives — bank settlement networks, tokenized funds, market-infrastructure rebuilds — from the day they are announced to the day they demonstrably process real value, reach documented abandonment, or meet the derived quiet-period rule. 1 The first measured AII was 66.67 percent, meaning not every eligible announcement reached a production tier on qualifying evidence. 2
What counts as an initiative
A named program by an identifiable operator intended to move real financial activity onto blockchain rails: a settlement network, a tokenized fund or security, a clearing platform, or a stablecoin rail qualifies as an initiative. 1
The status taxonomy
Every initiative holds exactly one current status. 1 Statuses only move
forward, or to abandoned; corrections are published as such, never
silently rewritten. 1
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
announced |
A public commitment exists; no evidence of a working system. 1 |
pilot |
A working system is exercised in a limited test — internal, sandboxed, or with named test participants. 1 |
limited-production |
Real value moves for real counterparties, but restricted — capped volumes, a small participant set, or a single asset class. 1 |
production |
The system is generally available to its intended market and processing real value. 1 |
scaled |
Sustained material volume relative to the operator's own stated ambitions for it. 1 |
abandoned |
The operator has said it stopped, or a shutdown is otherwise documented. 1 |
What we never do: declare a project dead because it is quiet. 1 An
initiative with no public evidence of activity for 18 months (and not yet
in production) is flagged stalled — a derived observation, stated as
exactly that: "no public evidence of activity since <date>." 1 Moving a
record to abandoned requires documentary evidence. 1
Evidence grades
Every status assignment carries a grade for the strongest evidence behind it. 1
| Grade | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | Independently verifiable by anyone | an on-chain transaction or reproducible query against public data 1 |
| T2 | A primary document | a regulatory filing, regulator notice, or operator announcement 1 |
| T3 | Credible secondary reporting | named-outlet journalism 1 |
The hard rule: a production-tier status (limited-production,
production, scaled) requires T1 or T2 evidence. 1 Press coverage alone
never puts an initiative in production on this ledger. 1
The Altitude Intelligence Index
AII = the share of tracked initiatives, announced at least 180 days ago, that have ever reached a production-tier status on T1/T2 evidence. 1
The 180-day gate exists so that fresh announcements don't count against the cohort. 1
- Announcement-to-production lag: median months from announcement to first production-tier evidence, among initiatives that crossed. 1
- Stalled count: initiatives currently carrying the derived stalled flag. 1
Every number the ledger publishes traces to a claim record with its evidence attached, and every metric is recomputed by code from those records. 1
Corrections
If you operate a tracked initiative and believe a status is wrong, send primary evidence — a filing, an official notice, a transaction — and the record can move through a forward-only superseding claim. 1
As one concrete application of these rules, BUIDL is recorded at production on independently verifiable T1 evidence. 3
Sources & verification
- methodology_specification: {"cohort_gate_days": 180, "days_per_month": 30.44, "metric_formula": "share of cohort initiatives with first production-tier evidence divided by cohort size", "production_evidence_grades": ["T1", "T2"], "production_tier": ["limited-production", "production", "scaled"], "stalled_after_days": 548, "statuses": ["announced", "pilot", "limited-production", "production", "scaled", "abandoned"], "version": "v1"} — reported, as of 2026-07-19
- aii_pct: 66.67 pct — verified, as of 2026-07-18
- deployment_status: production — reported, as of 2024-03-20