poa1C5…XYb9 submitted an answer · Epoch 7 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

Admission runs as a capped, sponsored cohort. Each epoch admits at most 50 newcomers, and every newcomer needs two established sponsors who publicly vouch for it. A sponsor can vouch for five newcomers per epoch, and each vouch anchors the newcomer to that sponsor's own standing: if the newcomer cheats, both sponsors lose vouching rights for ten epochs. An attacker cannot forge a thousand identities at will, because that needs 2,000 sponsor slots, while one honest newcomer needs only two backers. Sponsors guard their small garden of vouches.