ARCI v2 — Frozen methodology

Scope

ARCI v2 measures retail crypto buying cost across countries, assets, and payment rails. The full-matrix dataset enumerates every supported and actively-planned cell with one of four row inclusion states. Headline claims cite only headline rows. Aggregate-only — no per-exchange named comparison.

Country tiers

• Tier A — Headline (12 countries): AU, CA, DE, FR, GB, NL, PL, SE, SG, US, IT, ES.
• Tier B — Expanded appendix (10 candidates): CH, NO, DK, FI, BE, AT, PT, NZ, JP, KR.
• Tier C — Tracked but not benchmarked (10 candidates): BR, MX, IN, TR, AR, NG, PH, TH, ID, VN.

Asset tiers

• Tier A — Primary benchmark: BTC, ETH.
• Tier B — Expanded appendix candidates: SOL, XRP, ADA, DOT, LTC, BCH, AVAX, LINK, MATIC, UNI, ATOM, XLM, DOGE. DOGE is a Tier B candidate gated only on per-cell rankability — not lumped with long-tail meme tokens.
• Tier C — Stablecoin route slice: USDC, USDT. Treated as route infrastructure with separate methodology, never ranked alongside Tier A primary benchmark assets.
• Tier D — Long-tail methodology-gated: PEPE, SHIB, TAO. Tracked but not benchmarked; reason code long_tail_methodology_required. A future methodology FIL ratifies how to quote them; only after ratification can they enter the appendix.

Rail tiers

• Tier 1 — Headline rails: card, bank.
• Tier 2 — Threshold-gated local rails (Phase 2): sepa, faster_payments, blik, swish, interac, payid, ach, paynow.
• Tier 3 — Tracked rails: paypal, apple_pay, google_pay, cash_app, venmo. Most route to card under the hood (PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay) or are already exchange slugs (Cash App, Venmo).
• Tier 4 — Methodology-gated rails: klarna, stablecoin_polygon, stablecoin_tron. Stablecoin rails require D4 + D5 doctrine ratification per Coverage Credibility Roadmap §8.

Inclusion states

• headline — passes all four headline thresholds (≥ 5 distinct exchanges, ≥ 5 rankable rows, FRESH freshness, range width < 0.4 percentage points). Headline claims live here. Confidence: HIGH.
• appendix — passes the appendix thresholds (≥ 3 distinct exchanges, ≥ 3 rankable rows, freshness FRESH or DEGRADED) but a headline threshold fails (commonly: range width crosses the 0.4pp width threshold). Visible with confidence MID/LOW. Never appears as a headline conclusion.
• tracked — at least one snapshot or methodology pointer exists; appendix threshold fails OR the cell is methodology-gated (long-tail asset, stablecoin path, regulatory-uncertain country, etc.). Reason code visible. No median or comparative claim.
• no_data_yet — cell is in supported or actively-planned coverage but has zero usable benchmark data. Reason code visible. Confirms the cell is on Augea's coverage roadmap; makes no claim about cost.

Reason-code dictionary

Every tracked and no_data_yet row carries one reason code from this canonical set:

benchmark_ready

Cell clears the headline benchmark threshold and powers headline claims.

appendix_ready

Cell clears the appendix threshold but not the headline threshold; visible with MID/LOW confidence label.

no_data_yet

Cell is in Augea's supported or actively-planned universe; no usable benchmark data captured yet.

insufficient_rankable_rows

Fewer than the appendix-tier rankable-row threshold; cell ships as tracked.

stale_coverage

Median row freshness is STALE (> 30 days); excluded from ranked output.

missing_fee_or_spread

Core ScoreVector numeric fields are > 50% null on rows for this cell.

low_route_availability

Rail unsupported or partial across most exchanges in the country.

methodology_not_yet_approved

Cell would require a doctrine ratification (rail, asset, or path) before publication.

stablecoin_route_slice

Stablecoin route entry/exit cost; surfaced in the dedicated route slice with separate methodology.

long_tail_methodology_required

Asset requires a reflexivity-aware methodology pre-commit before headline or appendix inclusion.

local_rail_threshold_not_met

Local rail (e.g. SEPA, BLIK) does not yet have ≥ 5 exchanges reporting in this country.

unsupported_route

Route is structurally unsupported in this country (e.g. SEPA outside Europe).

currency_volatility_breaks_median

Country-level currency volatility breaks the per-country median methodology.

regulatory_uncertainty

Regulatory framework introduces noise or risk; cell tracked, not benchmarked.

thin_adapter_coverage

Fewer than 3 adapters report data for the cell.

Threshold rules

• Headline: ≥ 5 distinct exchanges + ≥ 5 rankable rows + FRESH freshness + range width < 0.4 percentage points.
• Appendix: ≥ 3 distinct exchanges + ≥ 3 rankable rows + freshness ∈ {FRESH, DEGRADED}.
• Tracked: at least one snapshot row OR methodology-gated.
• No data yet: zero usable rows in the supported/planned universe.

Claim boundaries

• Allowed: per-country median band on headline rows; cross-country comparison on headline rows; per-rail comparison within a country on headline rows; stablecoin route slice with separate methodology.
• Not allowed: “Augea recommends”, “cheapest”, “best for”, “winner”, projection / forecast framing, per-exchange named comparison without right-of-reply protocol, headline claims built from appendix rows, survey-derived claims (separate contract).

Why /buy expansion is a separate FIL

ARCI v2 establishes per-cell rankability evidence across the full coverage universe. Adding a country to /buy requires per-country telemetry route templates, sitemap entries per asset/country combination, decision-mode-badge re-evaluation per cell, and a ranking-pipeline pass over the new country's data. That is a substantially different scope from this report. A separate downstream FIL — working ID FIL-20260428-008 — adds the new Tier A countries (IT, ES) and any Tier B asset cells that clear thresholds to /buy using the rankability evidence ARCI v2 publishes here.

Update / correction policy

ARCI v2 is frozen at publication. Corrections publish as new dated entries (e.g. ARCI v2.1) with original v2 retained for citation continuity. Tier moves between editions are documented in the changelog.