Guide

How to read your certificate

By Ignacio Arias, founder of TRAVIDENCE and author of the methodology · Last reviewed: August 2026

Your TRAVIDENCE certificate presents the verdict across two pages: the band and Robustness Score, the status of the control gates, a validator detail section with your observed values, and a Reproducibility Hash anyone can check in the public verifier. This guide explains each section and how to confirm the document's authenticity and integrity.

Your certificate summarizes the validation in a verifiable document. Here's what each section means — how to interpret the result, not the model's internal details.

1. Header and identification

The header shows the TRAVIDENCE mark with the descriptor Independent strategy validation, followed by the data of your validation:

  • STRATEGY — the name your strategy was registered under.
  • ASSET CLASS — the market or instrument evaluated.
  • PERIOD COVERED — the date range of the validated trades.
  • CERTIFICATE ID — the unique ID, in the format TRV-XXXX-XXXX.
  • SCORED UNDER — the framework version used for the evaluation.
  • ISSUED — the issue date.

2. The Robustness Score and your band

The central block shows the ROBUSTNESS SCORE, from 0 to 100, and a band that interprets it. The band is the qualitative reading of the number:

  • Robust
  • Conditional Robustness
  • Limited Robustness
  • Not Robust

The Score measures robustness, not expected profitability. When a control caps the result, the certificate may show no number and instead indicate that the score was capped (see section 4).

3. The verdict

The VERDICT section explains in words what the result means: what the strategy showed, what limits it if anything does, and what the next steps are. It's the part that translates the number and the band into an actionable conclusion.

4. Gate status

The certificate includes a GATE STATUS table with three columns: GATE, STATUS, and EFFECT. There are four possible states. PASSED means the gate cleared. FAILED means the gate did not clear and may limit the result. NOT EVALUATED appears when the outcome is a Disclaimer of Opinion: no gate ran, and NOT EVALUATED does not mean PASSED. N/A — single component appears for single-component strategies: that gate does not apply, and the other two show their real status.

In the effect column, a failed gate may be marked as a binding cap — the control that determined the result — or as a non-binding cap. A NOT EVALUATED or N/A — single component gate shows effect —: there was no cap, because the gate didn't run or doesn't apply. The Combined row summarizes the outcome: Final outcome: no gates triggered when everything passes, Final outcome: capped by … when a control limits the result, or Final outcome: gates not evaluated when the outcome is a Disclaimer of Opinion.

When a gate doesn't pass, the certificate doesn't show a number. Gates are must-pass requirements — you either clear them or you don't — not penalties that subtract points from a score. Showing a number next to a failed gate would imply a continuous scale that doesn't exist, and would invite optimizing against that number instead of addressing the actual cause. That's why the certificate reports the band, which gate didn't clear, and its effect — "binding cap" or "non-binding cap" — instead of a score.

The three gates evaluate, respectively, the strategy's consistency across volatility regimes, the stability of its performance over time (subperiods), and the contribution of each component when the strategy combines several. The table tells you what happened and which control was determinant; the thresholds that define each gate are part of the calibration and are not published.

Page 2. The "Subperiod Monotonic Decay" block on your certificate looks for a sustained decline: performance getting worse from one subperiod to the next without recovering. A large drop in a single stretch, followed by recovery, doesn't count as deterioration. That's why the status can read "PASS" even when the "Max consecutive drop" row shows a high figure: it's printed for transparency, not because the test failed. A strategy that drops sharply one quarter and then recovers can still pass this test.

5. Disclaimer of Opinion: when the sample is insufficient

If your evidence isn't enough for an audit-grade evaluation, the outcome is a Disclaimer of Opinion. It is not a "failure" of your strategy: it means there isn't enough data to issue a supported verdict. With small samples it's hard to separate signal from noise, and we'd rather abstain than draw a conclusion the data can't support. The path forward is to generate more trades and resubmit.

In this case, the GATE STATUS table shows all three gates as NOT EVALUATED, with effect — on each, and the Combined row reads Final outcome: gates not evaluated. The validator detail section doesn't appear either, because no validator ran. None of this is an unfavorable result: it's the absence of a result, until there's enough evidence.

6. The Reproducibility Hash

At the bottom you'll find the Reproducibility Hash: a cryptographic fingerprint of the verdict and the inputs that produced it. Given the same inputs, the system produces the same verdict and the same hash. Together with the TRV- certificate ID, it lets anyone verify the document is authentic and wasn't altered after it was issued.

7. The independence framing

The certificate is the product of an independent validation: we don't trade strategies, we don't sell funded accounts, and we don't earn based on the verdict. That's why the document asserts robustness against the evidence evaluated — it doesn't promise future profitability or eliminate the risk of loss. The second page collects the methodology references that support the evaluation, including López de Prado's Deflated Sharpe Ratio.

Notice. TRAVIDENCE is an independent validation service. It is not financial advice or an investment recommendation. Past performance does not guarantee future results; no validation eliminates the risk of loss.

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