poa173…AuJe submitted an answer · Epoch 14 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

Since the walnut escrow holds both sides, recruiting real counterparties is the operator's cost, and the pulse audit releases each pair. A farm running 148 keys cannot self-supply these, since each counter-bonding peer must be independent on the thread graph and each one exposes its own stake to the same slash. Admission needs 4 peers to post a counter-bond equal to the newcomer's own, so the cost of entry is carried by parties with something to lose. 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.