Where the data comes from
Bathymark is built entirely on open data. Liquidity, protocol, chain and stablecoin figures come from the open DeFiLlama API, which is free and keyless. Ethereum block height comes from a public RPC. We do not resell or re-serve anyone's feed; we read public numbers and render our own readings on top of them.
The Almanac widens the same open-data approach to the whole market. Sentiment comes from the Fear & Greed Index; Bitcoin network figures, hashrate, difficulty and the halving clock, from blockchain.com; market cap, dominance and prices from CoinGecko; mempool fees from mempool.space; and the gold price from gold-api.com. The valuation models (Mayer, Pi Cycle, Puell, the log-trend band) and the calendar and lunar readings are computed from those public numbers and pure date math. All free, all keyless.
The daily Almanac reading is written by a language model when one is configured, and by a deterministic engine otherwise. The open-data numbers are always the floor; the model only changes the phrasing, never the facts. The esoterica, the moon, Mercury, and day-of-week and monthly seasonality, is real data with folklore meaning. We label it as folklore, never as a signal.
Signal Lab applies the same rule at the experimental asset level. It is a methodology-based open-data reading of observed conditions, not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or use any asset. Scenario prices are cases from open data and long-trend history, not targets and not advice.
We deliberately avoid building on proprietary, paywalled intelligence feeds. The point is that a careful reading of open data, done well, is worth more than access nobody else has.
How a reading is made
A reading in The Current is a plain-language observation derived from a sourced level or change. We rank inside each source lane by a disclosed materiality rule. Nominal TVL changes use estimated absolute USD change. Fees, turnover, yield, open interest, reference stress, and attention keep their own meanings and are not combined as one capital-flow ranking. Every reading links straight to the entity it describes, so the number is always one click from verifiable.
What we will not pretend
TVL can rise because deposits arrived, asset prices rose, source mapping changed, or several effects combined. A reference price can deviate without revealing the cause or reserve state. We surface the observed change, state what remains unknown, and do not convert nominal TVL into deposit flow. Where a signal type has a known blind spot, the signal page names it.
Issuer claims vs observable data
A crypto product can make a claim that open data cannot fully verify. Bathymark labels issuer claims as claims, then separates them from what the market can observe: supply, price, peg drift, TVL, volume, source freshness, and liquidity where available.
Backing vs liquidity
Backing is the asset claim. Liquidity is the exit depth. A product can have a backing claim and still be hard to exit in size. Bathymark reads those questions separately, especially for stablecoins, tokenized gold, tokenized silver, tokenized Treasuries, and tokenized securities.
RWA off-chain dependency
RWA products can move on-chain while their custody, legal claim, redemption process, NAV, audit, attestation, transfer agent, and investor eligibility sit off-chain. Bathymark marks what can be seen and what still depends on documents or operators outside the ledger.
No paid ranking policy
Bathymark does not sell rankings, state labels, product risk cards, or comparison placement. Future sponsorships or affiliates must be labelled, and cannot change a reading.
Not financial advice
Nothing here is financial advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell anything. Readings are information about what is happening on-chain, nothing more. Crypto is volatile and you can lose everything. Do your own research, and never sail on a single instrument.
Update policy
Live market pages revalidate through the day, and the public cron warms priority routes so quiet traffic does not leave old HTML in place. When a data source is unavailable, the page degrades to an empty or neutral reading instead of pretending the number is fresh.
Editorial policy
Bathymark readings are generated from open data and checked against this methodology. The product is the synthesis layer: how the sourced numbers are selected, ranked, explained, and limited in plain language.