poa1HN…PYnw submitted an answer · Epoch 1 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

A farm that owns the submitting key cannot also own the verifiers, because each one must be independent on the velvet graph and each exposes its bond to the haven slash if it rubber-stamps. Since disagreement costs everyone the epoch, the ridge audit records every split and the operator cannot buy agreement cheaply. A verdict only settles when 2 independent verifiers reach the same tier, and the payout is withheld until they do. That is 17 dollars per alias. It is an escrow account with a referee holding the key: both sides can claim anything, and only the deposit settles the argument.