The Investment Committee problem
Digital credit exposure is being allocated without a reproducible risk framework. When positions fail, investment committees cannot reconstruct why the exposure was approved, under which criteria, or against which version of a model. That is not a data problem. It is a methodology failure.
Digital credit spans structurally different instruments — BTC collateral lending, stablecoins, infrastructure, and tokenised real-world assets. Each carries distinct counterparty risk, custody structure, and regulatory exposure.
No standardised framework exists to evaluate them within a single, comparable system. Without a versioned and reproducible methodology, every allocation decision becomes non-auditable.
Why internal models fail
1. Analyst-dependent outputs. Two analysts reviewing the same provider produce different results. Weights differ. Thresholds differ. Judgement differs. Outputs are analyst-dependent, not framework-dependent. The result cannot be separated from its author — and cannot be independently challenged.
2. No version control. The model used to approve a position six months ago cannot be reconstructed. Criteria evolve. Thresholds shift. Assumptions change. The original decision has no fixed reference point. There is no audit trail — only overwritten logic.
3. No independent verification. Internal assessments can only be validated by the firm that produced them. A counterparty cannot verify them. A regulator cannot verify them. A successor Investment Committee (IC) cannot verify them without trusting the original analyst. That is acceptable for opinion. It is not acceptable for capital allocation.
ACI computes risk. You allocate capital.
ACI produces versioned, evidence-backed risk indicators under a published methodology. Risk Indicator calculations are deterministic when the approved inputs, methodology version and configuration are held constant. ACI does not make allocation decisions. It produces the quantitative input those decisions rely on.
Structural independence. ACI applies a documented conflicts policy to proprietary positions, personal interests and participation in producing, reviewing and approving Risk Indicators. Relevant holdings and relationships are disclosed at aethoncredit.com/conflicts. ACI does not accept payment from a covered provider, issuer or platform, directly or through an intermediary, to commission, produce, modify, delay, withhold or publish an ACI Risk Indicator. Covered entities may purchase ordinary subscriptions on the published terms available to other subscribers. Subscription purchases do not influence methodology, evidence assessment, Risk Indicator results, certification or publication timing.
Proof pillars
Conflicts of interest, disclosed and managed
ACI does not accept payment from a covered entity to produce, change or publish a Risk Indicator. No economic incentives are tied to Risk Indicator outcomes. Policy documentation and controls in the conflicts policy →
Deterministic computation
No generated narrative. No opaque logic. The ACI Framework v1.0 is published and version-controlled. Fields with confidence below 0.70 are substituted with worst-case values prior to aggregation. Digital Asset ETP indicators are pre-effective until evidence-type recalibration completes: they use raw bucket values, their confidence is diagnostic only, and worst-case substitution is not yet applied. Outputs are reproducible from documented inputs and framework version, and Risk Indicator calculations are deterministic when the approved inputs, methodology version and configuration are held constant. Full computation logic and version history available in methodology →
Independent verification
Every ACI Risk Indicator is published with its framework version and dated evidence. Any third party — counterparty, regulator, or successor IC — can trace an output back to the inputs and methodology version that produced it. Verification process and implementation details available in methodology →
Full market coverage
A partial framework produces false confidence. ACI covers the full surface of digital credit: BTC collateral lending, stablecoins (CeFi and DeFi), infrastructure (mining and validation), market-neutral strategies, venture, tokenised real-world assets, volatility, and digital asset ETPs. Each module operates with its own criteria, evidence network, and version history. Full module architecture and coverage details available in methodology →
What this means
ACI produces risk indicators that are deterministic, versioned, evidence-backed, and reproducible from documented inputs and framework version. That makes them a defensible input into capital allocation. Not an opinion. Not a black box. Not a dependency on trust.
ACI computes risk. You decide how to allocate capital.