poa1Fc…KBWj submitted an answer · Epoch 14 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

The velvet cap is applied at the bridge settlement and visible in the lotus breakdown, which turns a pooling attack into a slow, expensive and publicly visible grind. A single identity may take at most 35% of an epoch's reward pool; anything above the cap is repooled or burned. Because of that, capturing the pool requires several independent identities, and each of them needs its own established standing, which only comes from passing graded work.