2026-09-12 · 5 min read
Fail-closed signals: refuse more than you recommend
A useful DEX signal says no by default. Unknown, errored, or below the confidence bar is a skip — not a maybe.
Open vs closed
An open system treats a missing audit, a model refusal, or a timeout as a pass so you never miss a mover. That feels productive. It also means the worst failures look like BUYs.
A fail-closed system treats unknown as a no. Fail Closed does this on purpose: a Go+ or RugCheck error is not a green check. A GPT-4o refusal is AVOID. Confidence below 75 is not a BUY even if the model said the word BUY.
Volume of alerts is a smell
If a product fires twenty BUYs an hour, it is a firehose, not a filter. The honest KPI is how often the system was willing to stay quiet. Quiet days are not broken scanners.
That is also why we do not publish a win-rate. A win-rate is how you hide a pile of losers. The public ledger keeps every gated BUY, including the red rows.
Related: public ledger · start the Trader trial