Lesson 05 · Unit 10 · RingScore
Caps and exemptions
Not every signal is just a weight. A few findings are so decisive — a live honeypot, a drained pool — that averaging them away would be dishonest. When one of those lands, the engine caps the score: however well everything else measures, the number cannot rise above the ceiling that finding sets.
Signals measured
Weighted score
Critical finding?
yes
Score capped
no
Score stands
The other direction: exemptions
Context cuts the other way too. USDC keeps a freeze authority for legal compliance — punishing it like a day-old meme coin would make the score less true, not more strict. Established majors and known issuers earn narrow, named exemptions for exactly the levers their role explains.
An exemption is not a favour
An exemption is not a favour — it is the engine refusing to score a compliance lever on a regulated stablecoin as if it were a rug lever on a meme coin. Same field, different meaning. Treating different things identically is the bias; the exemption removes it.
Where this goes next
The two conditions that cap hardest each have a lesson behind them: a live mint authority, and a sell that cannot execute.