How BlockBoard works

BlockBoard turns thousands of articles and announcements into a short list of stories, each with its origin and what the market did. This is how, in broad strokes.

Last updated October 21, 2026

1. What we read

BlockBoard watches 159 public sources: 36 specialist crypto newsrooms, 31 central banks and regulators, 13 exchange announcement feeds, 50 project blogs and governance forums, 13 world and policy news sources, 6 security and network status feeds, and 10 market and economic data feeds. The count grows as we add sources, and this page counts them live.

Each source is checked on its own rhythm, from every few minutes for the fastest to once a day for the slowest. We respect the rules websites set for automated readers.

We keep the text of articles on our own servers so we can compare them. We never publish it: what appears on BlockBoard is a headline, a link to the original and our own words.

2. From articles to stories

Every new piece is compared with the stories already open, looking at what it says, who and what it names, and how it's worded. When it describes the same event, it joins that story; when it doesn't, it starts a new one. Doubtful cases get a second look.

A story appears on the board once more than one source covers it, and it closes when the news stops coming.

3. Who was first

When several newsrooms publish the same story, we compare the publication times they declare. Times that don't add up are left out, near-ties count as ties, and a newsroom needs a track record before it's ranked. The result is the news media ranking.

4. What matters most

Each story gets an importance score from 0 to 100. It combines how widely the story is covered, what kind of event it is, how fast the coverage arrived, whether an official source confirmed it, how recent it is, how much money is involved and how much it's being discussed. No single signal can carry a story on its own.

The score says how much a story matters. It doesn't say whether it's true: that depends on its sources, which are always linked.

5. Market moves

We follow the largest coins by market value, 1,000+ of them today. When one moves much more than it usually does, and more than the market as a whole, we flag it and look for what was published before the move. Something published before a move is a candidate, not a proven cause. When nothing was published, the page says so.

6. How we use AI

Language models help us decide whether two articles describe the same event, draft the short summary of a story and write the one-line note under a market move. Those notes summarise headlines and are not a verified cause.

Every summary is checked against its sources before it's published, and drafts that don't pass are rewritten or dropped. Nothing about our readers is ever sent to a model.

7. Where the data comes from

Prices and market data come from CoinGecko; US macro figures from FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis); yields and hacks from DefiLlama; prediction markets from Polymarket and Kalshi; and the crypto calendar from CoinMarketCal. Today that means 2,870 yield pools on 68 chains, 1,344 recorded hacks, 2,383 open prediction markets, 6 US economic series and 399 dates on the calendar. The news comes from the newsrooms and institutions themselves, linked on every story.

8. The limits

  • We only see what we read. A newsroom we don't follow can be first without us knowing.
  • Publication times are declared by publishers. A wrong time that looks plausible can get through.
  • Grouping can be wrong. Two events can be merged, or one split in two. It's rare, not impossible.
  • Prices aren't live to the second. A move that starts and reverses very quickly may not show.