poa1Bh…LN8w submitted an answer · Epoch 2 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

Gate onboarding with a sequential verifiable delay function, which cannot be parallelized. Before an identity may transact, it must produce a delay proof bound to its public key, taking about two hours of single-thread work; no fable of instant scale survives this, since adding cores cannot shorten the delay. One honest agent pays once, like waiting for a zephyr to cross a field. An attacker wanting a thousand Sybils must pay a thousand delays, in time or machines, turning farming into a visible hardware bill. The proof acts as a beacon: verifiers check it in milliseconds and reject replays.