How a number gets into the database
Launch costs are opaque by design: listing fees are unpublished, market-maker terms sit under NDA, audit quotes vary by an order of magnitude. The value of this database is not that it has numbers. It is that every number says where it came from, when it was checked, and how much to trust it.
A record is a claim, not a fact
Every figure is stored as a claim made by one source on one date. When two sources disagree, they become two records, shown side by side. We never average them: averaging a contradiction produces a number that describes nobody, and it hides the most useful thing a buyer can know, which is that the market has no agreed price.
The clearest example on the front page: three sources published 2026 prices for the same audit firm at $20k to $100k, $30k to $200k and $200k to $500k. All three stay in the database.
No record can be published without a source, a verification date and a confidence grade.
Confidence grades
The grade describes the source, not how plausible the number looks. On the collection pages the grade is shown as rarity.
What we use, and what we refuse
We use
- Court filings, regulator releases and securities filings.
- Public governance forums and on-chain votes.
- Exchange and provider documentation and price pages.
- Reporting by established crypto and financial press.
- Term sheets submitted by the teams that received them, verified as described below.
We refuse
- Scraping private chats, or anything behind a login we were not given.
- Buying leaks. A leaked document enters the database only after a publication with an editorial standard has reported on it.
- Money from the firms we write about. No paid profiles, no placement, no affiliate links, no sponsored records. A provider can always ask for a correction, and it is always free.
Disputed claims
Some of the most important records are allegations: a lawsuit that has not been decided, press reporting that the named party denies. We publish them because a founder deciding whom to sign with deserves to know they exist, and we label them as disputed everywhere they appear. A disputed claim is never presented as a finding of fact, and the named party's public response is recorded next to it when one exists.
What the Decoder computes
The Decoder evaluates the desk's payoff from a call option on the loaned tokens at a set of exit prices: the number of tokens multiplied by the amount the exit price exceeds the strike, or zero when it does not. It compares that with a monthly retainer over the same term.
This is intrinsic value at exit, not an option premium. It assumes the desk exercises whenever the price clears the strike, and it ignores volatility, the desk's own trading in the token, profit-sharing clauses and anything else a real agreement adds. It is a way to see the size of what is being signed, not a valuation and not advice.
Corrections
If you represent a firm named in the database and believe a record is wrong, write to hello@tgeindex.com with the record, what you believe is wrong, and evidence. It costs nothing and it does not require a lawyer.
What happens next. We acknowledge the request and review the evidence. The outcome is one of four, and we tell you which:
- Corrected, when the evidence shows the record is wrong.
- Removed, when the source no longer supports it.
- Annotated, when both the record and your statement stand; your response is shown next to the claim.
- Kept, with the reason, when the source is a primary document the evidence does not contradict.
Every change is logged with its date. A correction never changes the grade of a source to make a record look stronger or weaker than the source is.
Contribute a term sheet
The database grows fastest from the teams who received the offers. Send the terms you were given, anonymously, and receive three months of Full access at no cost once they are verified.
What to send
How it is handled
- Send it to hello@tgeindex.com from any address. A fresh address is fine.
- Redact names freely. The numbers are what matter.
- We check it for internal consistency and against the records we hold, and may ask you to confirm one detail.
- We never publish the document. Only the terms enter the database, and they are not attributed to your project unless the deal is already public.
- Access is granted the same day the terms are verified.
Freshness
Every record shows the date it was last verified. Launch costs move with the market: a listing fee from a bull quarter is not a quote for a bear one. Read the date before you read the number.
Changelog
Every change to a published record, including our own mistakes. Nothing is edited silently.
- FractureLabs v. Jump Trading updated. We described the case as a live dispute. The court dismissed it on 4 June 2025 for lack of jurisdiction, without deciding the merits. The record now links to the court docket and says so.
- GSR × Stargate regraded from 5 to 4. The original governance post could not be located; the terms are recorded from a deal tracker that reproduces it.
- Binance × Blockstack extended. Re-read against the SEC filing: added the returnable deposit of $500,000 and 2,500,000 STX, and removed a dollar figure the filing does not state.
- Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global and MyTrade relinked. Criminal outcomes now link to the Department of Justice; civil charges to the SEC. Gotbit's founder was sentenced in June 2025; MyTrade's founder pleaded guilty in October 2024.
- Decoder example corrected. An example on this site said the desk keeps $4,000,000 at 3x on default terms. The correct figure is $3,000,000: 20 million tokens times ($0.30 minus $0.15).