A reproducible comparison needs more than a screenshot of the receiving amount. Preserve enough information to identify the requested trade, the state observed and the cost boundaries used. Another reader should be able to redo the arithmetic without guessing which charges were included.
A compact evidence record
| Group | Record |
|---|---|
| Trade | Network, token contracts, direction, exact input or output, quantity |
| Quote | Observation time, quote amount, route if disclosed, expiry and receiving/spending bounds |
| Costs | Each charge's asset, amount, recipient, inclusion status and estimate or actual designation |
| Valuation | Reference prices, timestamps and comparison currency |
| Outcome | Submitted transaction, receipt, actual recipient balance change and failed attempts |
Keep quoted and realized records separate
A hypothetical ledger might record 1,000 input, 997 quoted output and 0.80 of estimated separate costs. After execution, it might record 996.5 actual output and 0.70 actual separate costs. Retaining both versions makes the 0.40 deterioration in net value visible. Replacing the quote fields with receipt values destroys that comparison.
Ethereum's transaction lifecycle distinguishes a submitted operation from one included in a block. A quote without an executed transaction is still useful evidence, but it should not be labeled a tested fill.
State what cannot be reproduced
A later quote cannot recreate a missing historical quote. A transaction receipt cannot prove that an unexecuted alternative would have filled. Record these limits explicitly rather than filling missing fields with a current estimate.
For publication, remove unrelated wallet information from the displayed record while retaining the necessary arithmetic inputs. The audit goal is to substantiate the particular cost claim, not to publish an entire wallet history. A small, complete dataset is more useful than many unexplained screenshots.
Sources & verification (1)
Source-check date is recorded in the article details. URLs are provided for manual verification. Use Copy to keep this page open.
- Transactions
Transaction lifecycle and receipt interpretation.
https://ethereum.org/developers/docs/transactions/