This is the valuation layer of the CEBE methodology. The measurement counts every claim at face and asks a single question, what do common shareholders own after senior claims. Claims Grade asks the next question, what are those claims made of, because two companies can carry an identical Claims percent and face entirely different structural risk.
Three things hold this layer in place, and they are stated before the rubric because they are the reasons it can be trusted. The CEBE measurement does not change. Claims Grade and Adjusted Claims percent are companion metrics that sit beside the number, never inside it. Converts stay at full face in the CEBE numerator, and the dual treatment principle is untouched. And every grade is computable from filing data, so two people running the rubric on the same instrument reach the same letter. The grade is an arithmetic of stated facts, not an opinion about a company.
Claims Grade measures a claim's impact on common equity. It is not a rating of the instrument as an investment, and it is not a credit rating of the issuer.
This is the coverage ratio read from the other chair. A credit investor wants high collateral coverage. An equity investor wants low Claims percent. Same arithmetic, opposite seats. The same inversion governs character. The features that make a preferred attractive to its buyer, senior, perpetual, cumulative, cash only, are exactly the features that score worst here. The same four facts read as highest quality digital credit from the preferred seat and as a permanent claim on common from the common seat. Both readings are correct at once. This site does not dispute the digital credit thesis. It measures who funds it.
Each instrument is scored on four dimensions, zero to three points each. Lower is better for common equity. The sum maps to a letter, with one categorical override that sits outside the arithmetic. Because one dimension moves with the stock price, a grade is as dynamic as Claims percent, and every published grade carries its date, its Bitcoin price, and its stock price.
| Score | Character |
|---|---|
| 0 | Self extinguishing. A convertible with conversion events actually occurring, or a Bitcoin denominated convert moving through a tranche conversion staircase. |
| 1 | Maturing. A defined maturity date, repayable or refinanceable when it arrives. |
| 2 | Perpetual but managed. Callable or redeemable at the company's option, or a rate that adjusts to hold the instrument near par. |
| 3 | Perpetual fixture. No economic call, no conversion path, cumulative. It does not leave. |
Applies to convertible instruments, measured as stock price divided by conversion price at grading time. A non convertible instrument inherits its Permanence score here, because its lack of an exit is already counted once and should not be counted twice.
| Score | Character |
|---|---|
| 0 | Deep in the money. Stock at or above 130 percent of the conversion price. Conversion is near certain, the claim behaves as equity. |
| 1 | In the money. Between 100 and 130 percent of the conversion price. |
| 2 | Out of the money but within reach. Between 70 and 100 percent. |
| 3 | Deep out of the money. Below 70 percent of the conversion price. The claim behaves as debt and will most likely be settled from the treasury. |
| Score | Character |
|---|---|
| 0 | No expansion. A Bitcoin denominated claim. Its Claims percent is static across every price, responding only to discrete conversion events. |
| 1 | Standard fiat expansion, no trigger. The claim grows in Bitcoin terms as Bitcoin falls, but carries no covenant, no near term maturity, no compounding pressure. |
| 2 | Fiat expansion plus a treadmill. Cumulative dividends compounding through the drawdown, or a maturity falling inside the stress window, or a currency pair that reverses into double expansion. |
| 3 | Trigger risk. Collateral backed with forced liquidation rights, margin maintenance, or covenant acceleration that can force Bitcoin sales. |
| Score | Character |
|---|---|
| 0 | Zero coupon. No cash cost. |
| 1 | A coupon under 5 percent, or any rate payable in shares at the company's option. Dilution is a cost, but a flexible one. |
| 2 | A coupon between 5 and 9 percent, cash only. |
| 3 | A coupon of 9 percent or more cash only, or any cumulative rate that compounds when unpaid. |
The total runs zero to twelve. Every grade pairs a letter with a word. The letter sorts, the word classifies. A grade stated as a bare letter reads as a report card and invites an argument about whether the letter is fair. A grade stated as its character names a fact the issuer's own materials usually agree with.
Permanent is the word the issuers themselves use when they sell preferred capital as a feature. The classification and the pitch agree on the facts. The grade only accounts for which shareholders carry them.
Any instrument that scores a three on Downside behavior, a forced liquidation or covenant acceleration right against the Bitcoin, is graded D regardless of its other scores. The difference between C and D is the difference between a claim that drains common equity and a claim that can seize the collateral. Those do not belong on the same number line.
Illustrative structures, not company grades. Live grades publish per company, verified first.
The rubric is easiest to read through the instrument shapes it is built to separate. The scores below describe structures, not any company's current instrument, since the Moneyness dimension moves with a live stock price.
| Structure | P | M | D | C | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deep in the money zero coupon convert | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | A · Exiting |
| Bitcoin denominated convert, active staircase, zero coupon | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | A · Exiting |
| Out of the money zero coupon convert, distant maturity | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | B · Maturing |
| Fiat face convert settled in a fixed Bitcoin quantity, low coupon | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | B · Maturing |
| Convert maturing inside the stress window, double compressive currency | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | B · Maturing |
| Perpetual convertible preferred, cumulative, deep out of the money, share payable | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | C · Permanent |
| Perpetual preferred, rate managed near par, non cumulative, cash only | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | C · Permanent |
| Perpetual preferred, high fixed cumulative, cash only | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | C · Permanent |
| Collateral backed Bitcoin loan with liquidation rights | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | D · Trigger |
A company's grade is the face weighted average of its instrument scores, mapped through the same bands. The weighting basis is the accrued liquidation preference for preferreds and principal for debt, the same figures the CEBE measurement carries, converted to one currency at grading time. Cash netting stays where it lives, in Claims percent. The grade describes the character of the claims that exist. Claims percent describes how much of the reserve they net to.
A weighted average can launder a single dangerous instrument into a comfortable company letter. So a company grade carries a flag whenever any D instrument exists on the stack, displayed as the weighted letter beside a trigger marker. Where a D instrument exceeds half of gross claims, the company grade is capped at D outright. A claim that can seize the collateral is not something an average is allowed to hide.
Claims percent counts every claim at full face, which is the honest measurement of what stands ahead of common today. Adjusted Claims percent answers a different and forward looking question, of the claims on the stack now, how much is likely to still be senior a cycle from now. It haircuts convertible claims by their likelihood of vanishing into equity, and it never feeds the CEBE measurement. It sits beside it.
| Moneyness | Weight on face |
|---|---|
| At or above 130 percent of conversion price | 25% |
| 100 to 130 percent | 50% |
| 70 to 100 percent | 80% |
| Below 70 percent | 100% |
| Non convertible, every preferred and straight debt and collateral loan | 100% |
Adjusted Senior Claims = sum of (face x weight) minus cash
Adjusted Claims % = Adjusted Senior Claims in BTC / Total BTC
The weights are stated priors, published so they can be calibrated against observed conversions as the record grows, not asserted as truth. A Bitcoin denominated convert runs the same schedule against its tranche conversion price, and because its steps are discrete its weights step cleanly as tranches convert.
A haircut claim is also an expected dilution event. A metric that shows claims shrinking without showing shares growing tells half the story and hands a critic a free shot. So Adjusted Claims percent is never shown alone. It is always paired with the conversion overhang, the shares that arrive as the haircut claims convert, expressed against basic shares. Claims fall, dilution arrives, and both appear in the same view. Nothing is hidden on either side.
A convertible deep in the money carries value to its holder above its face. That value reaches common equity through dilution, not through the claim line, and the rubric is strict about never counting the same transfer twice.
The claim is never marked above face in the measurement. A convert stays at full face in the CEBE numerator until it actually converts, because marking the claim up to conversion value while also counting the conversion shares would count one transfer in two places. The forward state is shown instead as a per instrument pro forma, the As Converted CEBE for that instrument, where the claim leaves the numerator and its shares enter the denominator together, and every claim that cannot convert stays exactly where it was.
Whether a conversion helps or hurts common falls out of the same test the site uses for any issuance. A conversion is accretive when the claim retired per new share, measured in sats at the current Bitcoin price, exceeds the current CEBE, and dilutive when it does not. One test, applied to a conversion instead of a sale.
A Grade C claim is not a verdict on management. A permanent claim can be brilliantly accretive. If Bitcoin compounds faster than a preferred's cost, a permanent ten percent claim funding that compounding is a good trade for common equity, and the grade says nothing against it. The grade tells you what the company is carrying. The accretion test and the spread tell you whether carrying it is paying off. Conflating the character of a claim with a judgment on the company is the same error BPS makes in the other direction, treating all capital as free.
So the rubric grades instruments, never futures. It is stated in public, computed from filings, and built from priors that are open to challenge, so that being wrong about a weight or a band is cheap to discover and expensive to hide. That is the same standard the measurement holds itself to, applied one layer up.