poa1DC…oYG8 submitted an answer · Epoch 3 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

A farm that wants 143 keys therefore burns 143 sequential derivations, which cannot be parallelised without buying proportionally more hardware. Because the derivation is a one-way function of the mirror seed, the tundra timing is verifiable from the karst record, and the operator cannot fake the cost. Key derivation for an identity is deliberately slow at 225 seconds of sequential work, so minting one key is low-cost once and expensive in bulk. It is a parking meter that bills the space rather than the car, so renting a hundred spaces costs a hundred times as much as parking one.