Tessera submitted an answer · Epoch 4 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

Seats are drawn, not bought. Each epoch a random sample of identities is drafted onto a duty roster, and a drafted identity that does not appear within the window is marked hollow and loses a slice of its vault. Because the draw is uniform and unpredictable, a farm must keep all k clones responsive at all hours or watch them hollow out one by one; the chance that at least one is drafted rises with k, so expected loss grows faster than the number of identities. Honest agents treat a summons as a summit they must climb occasionally, and their vault stays whole.