{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dataset",
  "name": "Coinformant Independence Ledger",
  "description": "A machine-readable statement of who owns Coinformant, how it earns money, and what it will not do.",
  "url": "https://coinformant.com.au/independence",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10",
  "creator": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Coinformant"
  },
  "ownership": {
    "entity": "Coinformant",
    "domain": "coinformant.com.au",
    "publisher": "Craig Winder",
    "country": "Australia",
    "owned_by_an_exchange": false,
    "owned_by_a_token_project": false,
    "owned_by_a_venture_fund": false,
    "external_shareholders": false,
    "statement": "Coinformant is independently owned and operated by its publisher. No exchange, token issuer, venture fund, market maker or trading firm holds any interest in it, directly or indirectly."
  },
  "commitments": [
    {
      "claim": "Ratings and rankings are never for sale.",
      "status": "yes",
      "detail": "No exchange, token, protocol or tool can pay to be listed, to rank higher, to be rated more favourably, or to have a negative finding removed. There is no mechanism to do so and no price at which we would build one."
    },
    {
      "claim": "We do not rank exchanges.",
      "status": "yes",
      "detail": "Our exchange directory sorts by CoinGecko’s trust rank, which is attributed to CoinGecko, or by facts you choose to sort on. We publish what an exchange lists and where it operates. We do not tell you which one to use. Beyond the editorial reason, ranking exchanges edges into financial product advice under s 766B of the Corporations Act — and from 9 April 2027 a digital asset platform is itself a financial product."
    },
    {
      "claim": "No commissioned affiliate links to exchanges.",
      "status": "yes",
      "detail": "ASIC’s INFO 269 treats a unique tracked link paying a commission per click-through as likely \"dealing by arranging\" — a licensable financial service that the media exemption does not cover. Every link to an exchange on this site is uncommissioned. We earn nothing when you click it."
    },
    {
      "claim": "We publish our data sources and their licences.",
      "status": "yes",
      "detail": "Every data source we use is listed at /data-sources, along with whether its licence permits commercial republication. Where it does not, we say so, and we do not publish that data. We hold 578 incident records unpublished for exactly this reason."
    },
    {
      "claim": "We publish corrections, with dates.",
      "status": "yes",
      "detail": "Errors are corrected in place, logged publicly, and dated. Where we have rated a project and the project disputes the rating, we publish their response in full alongside it."
    },
    {
      "claim": "We accept sponsored articles or paid \"reviews\".",
      "status": "no",
      "detail": "We do not accept sponsored posts, paid reviews, presale promotion, token listings for payment, or \"guest posts\" with embedded links. There is no rate card."
    },
    {
      "claim": "We hold or trade the assets we write about.",
      "status": "no",
      "detail": "The publisher does not trade tokens covered on this site. Any holding that arises will be disclosed on the relevant page and in this ledger before publication."
    },
    {
      "claim": "We are owned by, or funded by, an exchange.",
      "status": "no",
      "detail": "We are not. This is worth stating plainly because Australia’s most prominent crypto news outlet, cryptonews.com.au, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the exchange Swyftx — a fact disclosed in a single line of its own footer, and reported publicly by Capital Brief. It reviews its parent company and ranks its parent’s competitors."
    }
  ],
  "revenue": [
    {
      "source": "Display advertising",
      "status": "planned",
      "conflict": "Low",
      "detail": "Standard display advertising, sold on audience, never on editorial placement. Advertisers get no advance sight of content and no right of review."
    },
    {
      "source": "Affiliate links to non-financial products",
      "status": "planned",
      "conflict": "Medium — disclosed",
      "detail": "Hardware wallets and crypto tax software are goods and software, not financial products. Where a link is commissioned, it is labelled as such at the point of the link, and the commercial relationship never affects what we say about the product. Negative findings about a paying partner are published unchanged."
    },
    {
      "source": "Reader subscriptions",
      "status": "planned",
      "conflict": "None",
      "detail": "A paid tier over our historical data — risk-score archives, listing history, exchange fee history. Priced in Australian dollars, never in a token."
    },
    {
      "source": "Commissioned exchange affiliate links",
      "status": "not used",
      "conflict": "High — avoided",
      "detail": "This is how most crypto comparison sites make most of their money. We do not do it, for the licensing reason set out above. If that ever changes, it will be because we became an authorised representative of an AFS licensee, and this ledger will say so on the day it happens."
    },
    {
      "source": "Paid placement, sponsored ratings, presale promotion",
      "status": "never",
      "conflict": "Disqualifying",
      "detail": "Not now, not at any price."
    }
  ]
}