# Trust Index Methodology | Octagon

How Octagon scores prediction-market trust: one 0–100 Trust Score from four measured pillars — market integrity, info fairness, resolution quality, and…

Methodology   # The Trust Index

One 0–100 answer to the question every prediction-market trader asks first:
*how much should I trust this market?* Computed from order books, price history,
          settlement rules, and the market's information structure — never from vibes.

    ## The scale

Every scored event gets a Trust Score from 0 to 100, read on five bands. The score is
        conservative by design: a market has to earn its way up.

   Avoid 0–29  High Risk 30–49  Caution 50–69  Good 70–84  Strong 85–100      ## Four questions, one number

The score blends four measured pillars. Three of them — the safety questions — form the
** Integrity axis (80% of the score)**; the fourth is the
** Trade quality axis (20%)**. Safety outweighs convenience on purpose:
        a market you can trade easily but can't trust is the worst kind.

    Market integrity 30%  Can someone cause or influence the outcome they're trading?

   Info fairness 30%  Can a small group know the outcome materially early?

   Resolution quality 20%  Will settlement follow clean, objective rules?

   Trade quality 20%  Can you actually get in and out near the screen price?

     ## Blend, then cap

The pillars are blended by weight — and then hard caps apply. A great average can't paper
        over a disqualifying weakness:

 - Market integrity, Info fairness, or Resolution quality below 30 caps the total near 40–50.
- A severe activity flag caps the total at 30. Trade quality lowers the blend but never caps it.

   ## Screens, in plain language

Behind the Integrity pillars run individual screens — could a small group know this outcome
        early, can a participant trade a result they control, did prices move before the news, did
        one trade dominate the tape. Each screen reports in desk language, never pass/fail:

   Flagged A screen found the thing it looks for.  Clear A screen ran and found nothing.  Unclear A screen ran but couldn't decide.
Screens that don't apply to a market's type say so, and screens whose data source isn't
        connected yet are reported as awaiting data — never silently counted as clean.

   ## The honesty rules

 - **We never guess.** Missing data drops out of the weights and lowers stated confidence.
- **Priors say so.** A pillar with no applicable screen is labeled a structural prior on the card.
- **One computation.** Scored once, server-side. The report, the exports, and this page show the same payload.

   The Trust Index appears on every Octagon market report where it can be computed.

 [Browse market reports](/markets/) [About the Trust Index ›](/trust-index/)

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