Crypto Coin Vetting Report

Overview

A Crypto Coin Vetting Report is a paginated, twelve-section due-diligence document on a cryptocurrency token. It is generated on demand from public free-tier APIs (CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, Etherscan / Solscan / Polygonscan / BscScan / Snowtrace block explorers, DeFiLlama, GitHub stats, SEC EDGAR, Wikipedia), public X/Twitter accounts of named founders + foundation, and Serper-driven press search. It takes three to five minutes to produce, costs 50 credits (about $20 USD), and is delivered as a shareable HTML report with a printable PDF view.

It is intended for an investment committee at an institutional crypto fund (Multicoin, Paradigm, Polychain, Pantera, Coinbase Ventures, equivalent), a retail crypto investor doing pre-buy Due Diligence, or a journalist investigating coin promotion patterns.

The Five Frameworks We Adopt

ICD 203 — Analytic Standards (Office of the Director of National Intelligence)

The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Directive 203 defines nine tradecraft standards: properly described sources, proper expression of uncertainty, distinction between intelligence and assumptions, incorporation of alternative analysis, judgement of consequences, customer-relevant focus, logical argumentation, accurate reflection of source content, and clear language. We treat these as binding for every Crypto Coin Vetting Report.

UK PHIA Probability Yardstick (UK Defence Intelligence)

The Professional Head of Intelligence Assessment publishes a seven-band probability yardstick — Remote chance (under 5%) / Highly unlikely (10-20%) / Unlikely (25-35%) / Realistic possibility (40-50%) / Likely (55-75%) / Highly likely (80-90%) / Almost certain (over 95%). Every probabilistic claim — founder credibility, hidden-promoter inference, regulatory-action probability, pump-pattern similarity — is expressed using these seven bands paired with a separate analytical-confidence rating (High / Moderate / Low).

Founder Due Diligence Methodology (MentionFox)

Section 3 (Founder & Team Audit) applies the same Founder Due Diligence methodology that anchors the Founder Vetting Report (vertical 1 of the Due Diligence Platform): named-founder track record across prior projects, prior coin / token launches, prior employment at known crypto-fraud-adjacent entities (FTX-circle, Three Arrows, Celsius, BitConnect, prior SEC-charged operators), public-credibility signals from peer endorsements. The discipline of treating coin founders as named individuals subject to person-level Due Diligence is non-negotiable for crypto research.

Counterparty Due Diligence Framework (MentionFox)

Section 4 (Foundation / Issuer Entity Audit) applies the same Counterparty Due Diligence framework that anchors the Counterparty Vetting Report (vertical 10): legal name + jurisdiction of incorporation + named officers + ownership structure + regulatory enforcement. Crypto foundations / issuer entities are commonly registered in opacity-friendly jurisdictions (Cayman Islands / Singapore / Switzerland Zug / BVI / Panama). We surface jurisdiction as descriptive observation, not judgment — both legitimate decentralisation projects AND pump-and-dump operations cluster in those jurisdictions.

Pump-Pattern Historical-Analog Matching (MentionFox-original)

Section 10 (Pump-and-Dump Historical Analog) applies a MentionFox-original pattern-match methodology. We compare the subject coin’s promotion + listing + holder + tokenomics pattern against a corpus of known prior pumps (BitConnect, OneCoin, SafeMoon variants, Squid Game token, prior celebrity-endorsed launches, prior FTX-listed but later-delisted projects). Match strength is expressed in PHIA bands. The methodology does not predict that the subject coin WILL pump-and-dump; it surfaces structural similarity to coins that did.

The Twelve Sections of a Crypto Coin Vetting Report

Pump-Pattern Historical-Analog — How We Apply It

The Pump-Pattern Historical-Analog match is MentionFox-original methodology, developed because no published academic framework systematises retrospective pump-pattern matching for crypto. The methodology compares the subject coin to a corpus of known prior pumps along these axes:

1. Promoter overlap. Are named promoters of this coin the same individuals or entities that promoted prior pump-targets? PHIA-banded similarity claim.
2. Tokenomics shape. Initial distribution percent to founders, treasury percent, vesting cliff structure, total supply, supply-emission rate. Pump-and-dump operations cluster around specific tokenomics shapes (high founder allocation, short vesting cliffs, fast unlock).
3. Launch venue. Was the coin launched on the same DEX / IDO platform as known prior pumps? Same chain? Same liquidity-pool size?
4. Press-velocity profile. Velocity of paid-promotion campaigns relative to launch date. Coordinated coverage windows.
5. On-chain concentration profile. Top-holder distribution shape compared to known pump-target pre-pump distributions.

Each axis is scored as match / partial-match / no-match against the closest analog. The aggregate PHIA-banded similarity claim is then expressed: "Likely (~65%) structural similarity to BitConnect 2017 pre-collapse pattern (Confidence: Moderate — match on promoter overlap, tokenomics shape, on-chain concentration; no-match on launch venue and press-velocity)." The buyer decides what threshold of similarity matters for their decision.

Critical disclaimer: structural similarity does not predict outcome. A coin can match BitConnect’s pre-collapse pattern and still be legitimate. The methodology surfaces signal; it does not generate verdicts.

Data Sources — Free Public APIs Only

We deliberately use only free public data sources. The cost structure of paid crypto-Due Diligence products (Nansen subscriptions cost $36K/yr per institutional desk; Arkham Intelligence is similar) creates a market gap for asymmetrically-priced research. By restricting ourselves to free public APIs, we keep the Crypto Coin Vetting Report at $200 instead of $5,000.

• CoinGecko free API — price, volume, market cap, exchange listing data.
• CoinMarketCap free API — secondary price + volume verification.
• Etherscan / Solscan / Polygonscan / BscScan / Snowtrace free tiers — on-chain holder analysis. Etherscan’s July 2026 free-tier change capped responses at 1000 records per request; we work within that limit by querying the top-1000 holders only and explicitly noting this constraint in the on-chain section.
• DeFiLlama free TVL data — total value locked for DeFi protocols.
• SEC EDGAR — for SEC-registered coin issuers and any token-related enforcement.
• Public X/Twitter accounts of named founders + foundation. We follow public posts, not protected ones.
• GitHub repository statistics — commits, contributors, issue resolution velocity.
• Wikipedia — for established projects with structured-data infoboxes.
• Serper — for general press / news search.

What we do NOT use: Nansen, Arkham, Glassnode, Chainalysis, or any paid analytics platform. When buyers need that depth, the appropriate vendor is the buyer’s direct subscription.

Honest Limits — what we do not do

Corrections Policy

Three commitments modeled on the BBC editorial corrections process:

1. Identification window. Errors flagged within thirty days of report generation are corrected on the canonical view URL within five business days.
2. Re-publication, not silent edit. Corrections preserve a redline diff between the original and corrected text, time-stamped, with a one-line explanation.
3. Subject right of reply. The coin’s named foundation or named founders may submit a one-paragraph factual rebuttal to corrections@mentionfox.com. Verifiable rebuttals attach to the report alongside the original section.

Data integrity floor — ALCOA. Every Crypto Coin Vetting Report carries an ALCOA Methodology footer: each factual claim is Attributable to a cited source, presented in Legible plain language, marked with the date it was Contemporaneously verified, sourced from the Original primary record where available, and Accurately reflects the underlying evidence.