The one-sentence answer
Paddock sets the basket monthly; the market prices it continuously.
The constituent list and the weights are a Paddock output, published on the rebalance calendar and derived from trailing settled volume under the methodology spec. The value of the index at any instant is the value of that basket at constituent token prices, which a deployer takes from its own price source. Paddock does not publish, sign, stream, or attest to a level.
Two clocks, and they run at different speeds
| what changes | how often | who supplies it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Composition | which tokens are in, and their weights | monthly, effective 00:00 UTC on the 1st; provisional list five days earlier | Paddock |
| Value | the level | continuously, as constituent token prices move | the deployer’s price oracle |
Between rebalances the constituent set is fixed and the units per constituent are fixed. Every movement in the level in that period is a price movement. None of it is a settlement movement.
This is the distinction a deployer has to carry into its risk model, so it is stated twice: settled volume decides who is in the basket and how much of each. It does not move the level between rebalances.
What Paddock is not
Not a per-second settlement oracle. Paddock has no indexer and makes no RPC calls on its measurement path. Every count and every dollar in the record is a figure an upstream already computed, re-served, captured once nightly at 23:30 UTC. There is no intraday settlement series, and a design that needs one is asking for a capability that does not exist here — not a faster endpoint. Settlement figures are also revised: the nightly capture carries drop-guards, prior-carry and one-day backfill, each marked in the record. A figure that can be restated the following night is not a settlement price.
Not a price oracle. Paddock publishes no token price, quotes none, and takes none from a venue. get_token_metrics is deliberately Paddock’s own census series and excludes third-party token spot price.
Not a signed feed. There is no push, no websocket, no on-chain publisher contract, and no cryptographic attestation over a level. A deployer that needs a signed level signs its own, computed as in §05.3, against a price source it has chosen and disclosed.
Not a claim that an index is live. The Agent Commerce Index is suspended: existing prints are retained unmodified, no new prints are computed. This document governs an index when one is published.
How a deployer consumes it
At each rebalance (monthly). Take the published final constituent list — each row carries its matched domain, matched payTo wallet(s), 30-day settled volume and transaction count, probe_status, and an evidence URL — together with the methodology version in force and the full concentration block. Set units so the level is continuous across the rebalance:
u_i(T) = ( w_i(T) × L(T⁻) ) / p_i(T)
where w_i(T) is the constituent’s settled-volume weight from the published list, L(T⁻) is the level immediately before the rebalance, and p_i(T) is the deployer’s own price for constituent i at the effective instant. By construction Σ u_i(T) · p_i(T) = L(T⁻): the composition change moves no value on its own.
Between rebalances (continuously).
L(t) = Σ u_i × p_i(t)
Units are constant over the period. The only inputs that move are prices, and they are the deployer’s.
Every time a level is published. The concentration block travels with it — top-constituent share, top-3 share, effective constituent count, and the ex-top-constituent level — in the same artifact, not in a linked page and not on request. Where the top-constituent share exceeds the stated threshold, the level is published only alongside the ex-top-constituent level, with equal prominence. This is a condition of use, not a suggestion.
The five events a deployer must handle
A deployer’s integration is not complete until each of these has a defined behaviour. Paddock publishes the event; the deployer decides the response.
| event | what Paddock does | what it means for a level |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled rebalance | final list + change log at T | new units per §05.3; no value step |
| Off-cycle change | published with its reason, dated | same, mid-cycle |
| Appeal upheld after effect | given effect off-cycle, not held a month | a constituent can leave between calendars |
| Methodology version bump | new version tag; a series discontinuity | levels either side are not the same series. Never spliced, never retroactively applied |
| Data-quality hold | the rebalance is held and the hold is published | the prior composition stands; a stale composition that says so beats a fresh one that cannot be justified |
A constituent that stops trading, delists, or loses its price on the deployer’s own source is a price-source event, not an index event. Paddock will not know about it and does not undertake to.
When the index publishes
The index publishes when its methodology version is live; until then this page describes how a licensee would consume it.
What a licence would and would not include
A licence conveys the composition: the constituent list, the weights, the evidence per row, the change log, the concentration block, and the methodology version, on the published calendar.
It conveys no level, no price, no signature over a level, no uptime commitment on a level, and no undertaking that a level computed by anyone — including Paddock — is fit for settling a contract. The conflict policy governs what Paddock may and may not be paid for; nothing in a licence changes it, and a licensee cannot buy a constituent in or up.
Paddock is the independent data layer for AI agent commerce and publishes its own bad news. Anything a deployer needs before committing: [email protected].