Primary sources first
Provider documentation, contract specifications, rulebooks, fee schedules, status notices, regulator publications, index methodologies, and official public datasets are preferred for factual claims. A source is selected for the claim it can directly support, not because its domain is generally reputable.
Current provider rules are used for provider-specific mechanics. For example, the mark-price formula or market session for one venue is not presented as a universal perpetual-futures rule.78
A practical evidence hierarchy
For a live contract parameter, the provider’s current specification outranks a general explainer. For a regulated-market definition, regulator and exchange material is preferred. For an index composition claim, the index administrator is preferred. For public inventory data, the responsible statistical agency is preferred.256
- Current contract or protocol documentation
- Regulator, exchange, index-administrator, or government publication
- Audited report, filing, or official incident review
- Peer-reviewed or institutional research
- Reputable secondary reporting for context only
Claim-level citations
Numbered citations appear beside the paragraph they support and link to the matching source record. A source desk without a claim-level marker is not treated as proof for every statement on a page.
When several sources support different parts of one paragraph, all relevant records are cited. The prose should still explain whether a mechanism is general, venue-specific, historical, approximate, or inferred.
Definitions and normalization
Learn definitions are rewritten in plain language and may normalize terminology used differently by several venues. The glossary describes the concept, while the contract page and provider documentation define the operative implementation.21
Order types are especially sensitive to implementation details. General definitions explain market, limit, and stop behavior, but trigger source, price protection, and time-in-force must be verified for the selected venue.3
Access dates and link maintenance
Every research source records when it was accessed. Provider pages are rechecked when mechanics change and during scheduled content review. A broken link should be replaced with the same primary record or an archived official copy, not an unrelated summary.
Conflicts and uncertainty
When authoritative sources disagree, the page should describe the conflict, prefer the document with direct jurisdiction or operational control, and avoid manufacturing certainty. When a conclusion is an inference, it should be labeled as one.
Live values shown by the execution provider remain authoritative for an open account. Educational content can explain the system but cannot guarantee current availability, fills, or parameter values.78