How do I verify a trading track record without trusting the screenshot?

The three things people call verification (only one is)

A PnL screenshot proves that an image exists — croppable, cherry-pickable, fakeable, and nobody can re-derive it. A signed attestation proves a specific record was signed over specific inputs — checkable with the signature recheck (npx kestrel.markets@latest verify <proof-url>), but it grants nothing beyond provenance and proves no result. An open recompute — certification — proves the record reproduces byte-for-byte from the published CLI on your machine. The reproduction is the proof; the signature is not.

Attestation vs. certification, drawn explicitly

The signing act is an attestation: “this record came from the platform.” That is exactly the kind of vouch a neutral verifier is right to refuse to take on faith. Certification is the opposite move: you re-run the computation and get the same bytes, so nothing has to be trusted — not the poster, not the platform, not even the key. Both verbs ship in the published CLI; lead with certify, because recompute is the stronger check.

The referee holds no bags

The verifier you are leaning on holds no positions, no custody (the platform never holds a wallet or broker credential), no endorsements, and no token — it has nothing to protect and no reason to lie. The record is scored against The Perch, the do-nothing baseline, with losses on the record and buy-and-hold as the control, never the headline. The only headline is: did it reproduce?

Honest limits

The recompute bar today is the byte-identical Blotter re-projection — the determinism leg. It is not a judged-Grade claim about strategy quality, which is a separate layer. Records run on covered equities and broad ETFs over managed licensed data; crypto execution is not built. And the proof proves the run, not the future.

Falsify this page

This page pins a certified record — recompute it, or watch the check fail:

To see what a receipt looks like from the inside, mint your own reference proof: npx kestrel.markets@latest sim <slug> — no signup, no card, no custody.