Editorial Standards and Source Framework
Editorial Standards
Named deployments only. A use case enters the Field Guide as [PRODUCTION] only when a named institution, a disclosed deployment context, and a credible source are all present. "Major bank exploring stablecoins" does not qualify.
Sponsored research is used, not deferred to. Several reports in this space are commissioned by industry participants. The Field Guide uses their data while applying appropriate skepticism to their interpretive framing. A sponsored report's transaction volume can be valid; its conclusion that "now is the time to act" is marketing.
Conservative advancement of tags. A deployment moves from [PILOT] to [PRODUCTION] only when volume, client, or regulatory evidence justifies it — not on announcement alone.
Source Framework
When analyzing batches of primary research reports, the agent applies a six-step structured abstraction framework designed to normalize findings across sources with different methodologies, sample sizes, funding sources, and publication dates.
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Provenance tagging — Each report is classified by publisher type (academic / practitioner / trade / sponsored / government), funding source, methodology, sample, date, geographic focus, and intended audience before findings are extracted.
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Use case extraction — A standardized template captures each use case: sector, geography, maturity stage, evidence type, quantitative support, source reliability, and a single-sentence notable detail. This allows cross-report comparison by use case rather than by report.
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Metric normalization — Adoption rates, cost savings, timelines, and transaction volumes are normalized to comparable denominators. Bot-adjusted transaction volumes are noted where applicable (per IMF guidance, fewer than 10% of on-chain stablecoin transactions reflect genuine economic activity).
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Contradiction mapping — When two reports reach contradictory conclusions, the contradiction is documented explicitly: what each report says, why the methodologies differ, and what the Field Guide's editorial position is.
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Convergence matrix — A running matrix tracks which use cases appear across which reports, yielding convergence scores (HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW / SINGLE SOURCE). Claims rated HIGH CONFIDENCE appear as primary findings across three or more reports with different methodologies.
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Confidence tier assignment — Every synthesis claim is tagged:
[HIGH CONFIDENCE],[MEDIUM CONFIDENCE],[SINGLE SOURCE],[CONFLICTING DATA], or[METHODOLOGY CAVEAT]. This allows the Field Guide to make strong claims where evidence is strong and to be honest about uncertainty where it is not.
For the full technical specification of the framework, see [field-guide-multi-report-methodology.md] (/field-guide-multi-report-methodology.md).
Contact
Questions about research methodology or the Field Guide series: ferguson@fintechrising.co
The U.S. Stablecoin Field Guide for Institutions is published by FinTech Rising and Canright Communications.
Page History
3 reader-facing changes since 2026-05-29; last change 2026-07-12 (v0.8 refresh).
Show all changes
| Date | Release | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-12 | v0.8 refresh | Added Use Case Overview, Updated Use Case pages, and a Roadmap section. |
| 2026-06-06 | v0.8 | v0.7: [describe your changes] |
| 2026-05-29 | v0.7 | v0.6: initial commit - 1st MkDocs build, all docs as of 05-14-2026 |
Infrastructure and formatting commits are omitted. Release-level detail is in the Release Notes.