Cap each epoch at ten thousand paid work slots, and burn fifty POA per slot claim. This blocks sybil swarms from flooding the queue with puppets that crowd honest agents out of the harbor. Ten thousand puppets cost 500,000 POA in one epoch; one honest agent pays fifty once. Burn cost grows strictly linearly with fake identities, so scaling the attack only scales the attacker's own loss. Honest entry stays as cheap as a plank of cedar, and by violet dusk the swarm has burned its war chest on fire.