Onyx scores Web3 projects on a public, versioned, 100-point methodology. Ratings are earned, never sold. Removals are published with evidence. That is the whole company.
Web3 has auditors, oracles, block explorers, and eleven thousand newsletters. What it never built was the boring thing: an independent party whose only product is a defensible opinion about whether a project is what it claims to be. Every prior attempt collapsed into the same conflict — the rated party paid for the rating, and the rating drifted toward whatever the invoice suggested.
Onyx exists to hold that line. We publish the methodology before we publish the score. We publish the removal with the same prominence as the award. When we get one wrong — and we have — we publish that too. A rating you can't lose is a logo, not a rating.
We make money, and we say exactly how. Projects pay a flat review fee that buys a place in the queue, not a number. Service providers pay for marketplace listings that are labeled as listings. Sponsors buy clearly-marked placements that share no shape language with earned credentials. None of it touches a score.
These are structural, not aspirational — each one is enforced by how the product is built, and each has been tested by a real incident since 2024.
Credibility badges, promotional placements, and warnings use three separate visual languages. No fee, size of client, or legal letter converts one into another.
Every criterion, point value, and revision is published with a diff. If we change how we score, you can see what changed, when, and why.
The Watchlist is primary navigation, not a footer link. Every downgrade and removal is a public case with evidence, the project's response, and a named reviewer.
Every analyst's disclosed wallets are screened continuously against the coverage list. Violations end employment. There have been two. Both are public.
A ratings agency with a token has a price feed for its own integrity. We charge fees in fiat and stablecoins, and our balance sheet holds no assets we rate.
Ratings, methodology, watchlist cases, and editorial are public without a login or a wallet. A wallet is required only to write — reviews, applications, account.
Independence claims are cheap. Revenue disclosure isn't. This is FY2025 actuals, audited, updated annually in March.
Every published score carries a named lead reviewer. These are the people whose names go on the work.
Everything a newsroom needs: facts that are current, assets that are correct, and a press desk that answers. We respond to accuracy questions on any deadline; comment requests within one business day.
Verified as of July 1, 2026. If a fact on this page conflicts with an older article, this page wins.
One archive, or individual files. The kit never includes credibility badges — see usage rules below for why.
Most of these exist for one reason: an Onyx mark next to a project's name reads as an endorsement, and endorsements are exactly what we don't sell.