How TheWeal newsroom sources, verifies, edits, and publishes — written down so you can hold us to it.
1. Sourcing standards
Every factual claim must be sourced. A claim in a TheWeal article must rest on one of:
- A primary document (a court filing, SEC filing, EU regulatory text, exchange terms-of-service page, audited financial report, foundation governance proposal). The article must link directly to it.
- An on-chain transaction hash, address, or query the reader can rerun. We prefer Dune or Allium dashboards we have built and made public.
- A named interview with an identified source. The source’s name and affiliation must appear in the piece unless paragraph 1.4 (anonymous sourcing) applies.
1.4 — Anonymous sourcing. We use anonymous sources only when (a) the information is materially in the public interest, (b) the source faces credible retaliation or legal jeopardy if named, and (c) the editor on duty has personally verified the source’s identity and reason for anonymity. Anonymous claims must be independently corroborated by a second source or a primary document before publication.
1.5 — Press releases. Press-release-derived content is labelled PRESS RELEASE at the top of the byline block and is never paid-for. We do not publish press releases verbatim; we summarise and add context.
2. Predictions
TheWeal’s price predictions are produced by a published model documented in full at /methodology/. The model is deterministic — same inputs always produce the same outputs.
2.1 — Reporters cannot override the model. A reporter may not change a published prediction number for marketing, audience, or commercial reasons. If a reporter believes the model is wrong, they may write an analysis piece arguing so, with the alternative number presented as their personal view (not the model’s output).
2.2 — Predictions are clearly time-stamped. Each prediction page shows the moment the underlying data was sampled. Numbers refresh hourly via the price feed.
2.3 — Historical accuracy is tracked publicly. Beginning Q3 2026, we publish a quarterly backtest report comparing past base-case predictions against subsequent realised prices. We will not delete embarrassing predictions.
3. Corrections
Errors happen. We correct them quickly and transparently.
- Minor errors (typos, formatting, broken links) are corrected silently. No append-only log entry.
- Material errors (wrong number, wrong attribution, wrong claim, wrong direction) trigger:
- A correction notice at the bottom of the affected article, stating what was wrong and what was corrected, dated and timed
- An entry on the public corrections log
- If the article has been syndicated, we notify the syndication partner
To report an error: email corrections@theweal.com with the URL, the specific claim, and supporting source. We respond within 24 hours.
4. Conflicts of interest
Every reporter and editor at TheWeal discloses their personal crypto holdings to the editorial leadership upon joining and quarterly thereafter.
4.1 — Disclosure thresholds. Holdings worth less than $2,000 USD-equivalent are not material. Above that threshold, the reporter cannot write recommendation-shaped content (e.g. “X is a buy”) about the specific coin.
4.2 — Exempt assets. BTC, ETH, and major USD-pegged stablecoins (USDC, USDT, DAI) are exempt from the recommendation-shape restriction. Reporters may write about them regardless of personal holdings, with disclosure in the article footer when material.
4.3 — No trading on advance information. Reporters do not trade based on information they will publish before publication.
5. Separation of editorial, advertising, and affiliate
Editorial coverage decisions are made by the editorial team. Advertising sales and affiliate partnerships are managed separately and do not influence what we cover.
- Display advertising — sold by partnerships team, never tied to editorial coverage
- Sponsored content — clearly labelled
SPONSORED, not produced by the editorial team, not searchable as news - Affiliate links — on coin pages’ “where to buy” sections; disclosed at /affiliate-disclosure/; never appear inside editorial coverage of a token
6. Use of AI
TheWeal does not publish AI-generated articles as if written by a human. Specifically:
- Article body copy is written by named human reporters
- AI tools may be used for: research summarisation (with verification), grammar checking, headline brainstorming, code generation for charts
- AI-generated content used in any piece is labelled in the body and excluded from the byline credit
- Our quantitative prediction model is software, not “AI”; it is deterministic and documented in /methodology/
7. Style
Plain English. Active voice. Numbers right-aligned in tabular figures. Per-coin pages use the coin’s own name and ticker, not nicknames. We do not use “moonshot”, “to the moon”, “100x”, or other hype language in editorial copy.
Document control
Version 1.0 — published at launch. Material changes to these guidelines are announced in the newsletter and dated below. Last updated: launch.