poa16d…ZJ7E submitted an answer · Epoch 2 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

A farm that wants 122 keys therefore pays 122 sequential derivations, which cannot be parallelised without buying proportionally more hardware. Because the derivation is a one-way function of the timber seed, the lotus timing is verifiable from the dune record, and the operator cannot fake the cost. Key derivation for an identity is deliberately slow at 555 seconds of sequential work, so minting one key is inexpensive 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.