> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.alterscope.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # RWA Credit Ratings > The Alterscope RWA credit-rating methodology — a unified 9-factor model producing a continuous 0–100 score, a derived AAA–D grade, and a bi-temporal, replayable rating history. Alterscope rates tokenized real-world assets (tokenized Treasuries, money-market funds, stablecoins, private credit) with the **same risk-factoring engine that scores DeFi instruments, extended by two RWA-specific factors**. One unified model, two markets, one published methodology. The canonical output is a continuous **0–100 score**; the **AAA–D letter grade** is a derived, monotonically-mapped view for readers who think in notches. What sets the methodology apart from incumbent RWA raters: * **Continuous, not quarterly.** Ratings recompute on a five-minute cadence from live on-chain and attestation data, not from a quarterly PDF cycle. * **Factor-decomposable.** Every score replays into its 9 factor contributions, and every factor into named subfactors with citations to the underlying data row (NAV snapshot, custody-attestation hash, audit-firm signoff event). No black box. * **Bi-temporal and verifiable.** Every rating row carries both validity time and transaction time, so you can ask "what was the rating as known on May 1?" and get a historically-honest answer. Pass `asof` on any ratings endpoint to replay the past. * **Cascade-graph-aware.** The Systemic factor measures *inverse contagion* — how many downstream positions degrade if this issuer drops notches — by querying Alterscope's dependency graph, which is itself bi-temporal and auditable. ## The 9-factor model DeFi instruments use the existing 7 factors at their existing weights, with zero weight on the two RWA-specific factors. RWA instruments use all 9 with RWA-tuned weights. The weight vector is fixed per instrument type and published per methodology release. | # | Factor | RWA weight | What it measures (RWA lens) | | - | ------------------------------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 1 | Smart Contract | 8% | Audit firm, code age, formal verification of the mint/burn pathway. RWA contracts are simpler wrappers, so variance — and weight — is lower than DeFi's 20%. | | 2 | Liquidity | 14% | Holder concentration (HHI), secondary-market depth, redemption SLA and queue length, holder count. | | 3 | Oracle (NAV/PoR feed) | 12% | NAV-feed cadence, Chronicle-native vs issuer-PoR-primary, staleness ratio vs published threshold, source redundancy. | | 4 | Governance | 10% | Mint/burn signer set, upgrade timelock, emergency-pause powers, multisig signer transparency. | | 5 | Economic | 10% | Yield sustainability — T-bill spread for treasuries, default-rate history for private credit, fee/expense ratio. | | 6 | Market | 4% | NAV-vs-mark divergence, depeg history, secondary-market premium/discount band. | | 7 | Systemic | 12% | Cascade-graph inverse contagion (below). | | 8 | **Custody Attestation Quality** | **17%** | Attestation cadence, attesting-firm tier, reserve-composition transparency, PoR/NAV reconciliation tolerance. | | 9 | **Issuer Governance / Legal Wrapper** | **13%** | SPV isolation, regulatory wrapper, audit-firm tier, on/off-chain control structure. | Factors 8 and 9 are the RWA-specific additions. The on-chain-derived Custody factor (17%) is deliberately weighted above the catalog-derived Issuer Governance factor (13%): attestations refresh continuously, while the issuer catalog is curated and refreshed quarterly, so the fresher signal carries more weight. ### Factor 8 — Custody Attestation Quality (17%) Four subfactors totalling 100 points; explicit, auditable, monotonic: | Subfactor | Points | Scale | | -------------------------------- | ------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Attestation cadence vs threshold | 0–30 | 30 if fresh against the connector's declared freshness threshold; 20 within 2×; 10 within 7×; 0 older. | | Attesting-firm tier | 0–30 | 30: Big-4 signoff + Chronicle-native feed; 25: Big-4 signoff only; 20: reputable non-Big-4; 15: issuer-self-PoR with audit-trail manifest; 0: none. | | Reserve-composition transparency | 0–25 | 25: per-CUSIP / loan-level breakdown; 15: aggregate-only with rated claim; 5: opaque. | | PoR/NAV reconciliation tolerance | 0–15 | 15: ≤1bp; 10: ≤10bps; 5: ≤100bps; 0: unstated. | ### Factor 9 — Issuer Governance / Legal Wrapper (13%) | Subfactor | Points | Scale | | -------------------- | ------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | SPV isolation | 0–30 | 30: bankruptcy-remote SPV with rated trustee; 20: SPV without bankruptcy-remoteness; 10: direct issuer balance sheet; 0: undisclosed. | | Regulatory wrapper | 0–25 | 25: MiCA-licensed + qualified custodian; 20: Reg D + qualified custodian; 15: Cayman/BVI/Bermuda + qualified custodian; 10: offshore + audited; 5: offshore, no audit. | | Audit-firm tier | 0–25 | 25: Big-4; 20: mid-tier reputable; 15: established specialist crypto firm; 5: new specialist firm; 0: no audit. | | Mint/burn governance | 0–20 | 20: timelock + multisig with public signers + pause behind the same multisig; 15: timelock + multisig; 10: multisig only; 5: centralized EOA. | ### The Systemic factor — inverse contagion The Systemic factor does not measure this instrument's exposure to others. It measures how much of the ecosystem depends on *it*: the rating engine queries the cascade graph for downstream positions that would degrade if the issuer dropped notches, and scores the exposure-weighted sum against the instrument's TVL. Because the graph is bi-temporal, the Systemic score is auditable — you can replay exactly which downstream markets drove a score on any past date. ## Score → grade mapping The 0–100 score is canonical; the letter grade is a published, immutable, monotonic mapping per methodology release. BBB− (50) is the investment-grade floor. | Score | Grade | | Score | Grade | | ------ | --------------- | - | ----- | ----- | | 95–100 | AAA | | 45–49 | BB+ | | 90–94 | AA+ | | 40–44 | BB | | 85–89 | AA | | 35–39 | BB− | | 80–84 | AA− | | 30–34 | B | | 75–79 | A+ | | 25–29 | CCC | | 70–74 | A | | 20–24 | CC | | 65–69 | A− | | 15–19 | C | | 60–64 | BBB+ | | \<15 | D | | 55–59 | BBB | | | | | 50–54 | BBB− (IG floor) | | | | Every rated instrument carries both surfaces at once — for example `(score: 84, grade: "AA-", investment_grade: true)`. ## Insufficient data is disclosed, never guessed When a factor lacks signal it is marked `not_scored` with a human-readable `na_reason`, the composite renormalizes over the factors that did score, and the response reports `scored_factors` / `total_factors`. An instrument where too few factors score is graded `NR` (not rated) rather than assigned a fabricated number. ## Calibration references The model is sanity-checked against published third-party assessments of the same instruments — most directly Particula's public AA+ rating of Anemoy's JTRSY (the engine must land within ±1 notch on the same instrument), alongside Cicada's tokenized-risk-assessment and structured-credit index reports. The reference reports are archived in the engineering repository under `archive/credit_risk-reference/` (Particula/Anemoy JTRSY, May 2025; Cicada index dashboards and tokenized risk assessments). These are cross-reference points, not inputs: Alterscope does not resell or rebroadcast third-party ratings. ## Access Browse ratings in the [Alterscope app](https://app.alterscope.org/rwa/ratings) on any plan. **Programmatic access via API key requires the [Enterprise plan](/pricing)** — under-tier keys receive `403 ENTERPRISE_PLAN_REQUIRED` with an upgrade link. The endpoint surface and response shapes are documented in the [API reference](/api-reference/overview) and the [RWA risk grades](/develop/concepts/rwa-risk-grades) concept page.