{"id":"rank.l9.v3","title":"Actor at liveness 9 (independent counterparties)","unit":"count of actors","chain_set":"eip155:8453 (Base)","window":"rolling 30 days for the counterparty count","definition":"Everything rank.l8plus.v3 requires, and its payments that left its control (rank.l7plus.v2) reached at least three INDEPENDENT counterparties within the last 30 days. A counterparty is independent when it has contract code (a venue, protocol or escrow) or when at least two different registered agents pay it in counted payments.","method":"Distinct receiving addresses over the window among the payments rank.l7plus.v2 counts; contract code from the counterparty table (eth_getCode); the number of distinct paying agents per address over all counted payments. This is the test published beside L9 as rank.l9.independent.v1 from 12 October 2026, now the rule itself.","excludes":["Repeat payments to the same address, which count once however often they recur.","An address only this agent pays: it may be the operator's own."],"does_not_assert":["That an excluded counterparty belongs to the operator: only that nothing in our data shows anyone else pays it.","That a contract counterparty is independent of the operator: a fleet can pay its own contract."],"source":"AFG-Pulse payment scan","since":"2026-10-13","supersedes":["rank.l9.v2","rank.l9.independent.v1"],"superseded_by":"rank.l9.v4","revisions":[{"date":"2026-10-14","what":"Superseded by rank.l9.v4: the second payer of a shared address must come from a different operator set, and bot-like contracts do not count. Measured before the switch: 71 of 72 L9 agents kept the level; at the switch (13 Oct, 21:22 UTC) 72 under both rules."}],"body_sha256":"764491545215077080c1f9e487faa859c6e625fee378153f07123331e6f184d2","url":"https://agenticfinancegraph.com/def/rank.l9.v3","ladder":"https://agenticfinancegraph.com/ai-agent-liveness-methodology-l0-l9-ladder","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Agentic Finance Graph — https://agenticfinancegraph.com"}