> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.cournot.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.cournot.ai/tokenomics/the-verification-chain.md).

# The Verification Chain

Every resolution is backed by a chain of independently verifiable artifacts, enforced by mathematics and open challenge, not by any central team:

* **Provenance (zkTLS):** evidence carries a cryptographic receipt proving it originated from a specific source over a genuine secure session. Evidence without a valid proof is inadmissible.
* **Execution (deterministic replay / opML)**: reasoning procedures are committed in advance and executed deterministically; anyone can replay them, and a divergence is resolved by an on-chain dispute that re-executes only the contested step.
* **Output (schema constraints)**: results are produced in strict, contract-settleable form; conflicting signed outputs are provable by simple signature comparison.
* **Enforcement (Sentinels)**: permissionless, bonded challengers independently re-verify this chain during public challenge windows, and because violations are objectively provable, one honest challenger is enough.

These mechanisms prove that evidence is authentic, committed procedures were faithfully executed, and outputs are well-formed. They are not represented as proving that a natural-language judgment is semantically true; judgment questions follow committed specifications, challenge windows, and bounded review — never token-weighted voting.

#### Network Roles

1. **Truth Collateral**: Every claim the network makes is backed by a participant who staked something on being verifiable: evidence carries a provenance proof and a bonded **Collector** (see Network Roles table below); reasoning carries a replayable commitment and a bonded **Auditor** (see Network Roles table below); outputs carry a schema and a bonded Judge; watching carries a bond too. Accountability is atomic, enforcement is proportionate to provability, and truth is never for sale. <br>

   |    Role   |                        Contribution                        |                                                    Bonded commitment                                                   |
   | :-------: | :--------------------------------------------------------: | :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
   | Collector |        Fetches evidence with zkTLS provenance proofs       |                                   Source bond — provenance, freshness, authorization                                   |
   |  Auditor  | Executes the pre-committed, replayable reasoning procedure |                             Execution stake — committed procedure matches actual execution                             |
   |   Judge   |   Produces schema-conformant, contract-settleable outputs  |                                   Verdict bond — no malformed or conflicting outputs                                   |
   |   Anchor  |     Provides attested trusted-execution infrastructure     |                                  Service-level stake — attestation validity and uptime                                 |
   |   Agent   |  Publishes probabilistic assessments with evidence trails  | Signal bond — evidence authenticity and version commitments; quality scored longitudinally, never punished per outcome |
   |  Sentinel |    Independently re-verifies work and submits challenges   |                            Challenge bond — evidence-backed challenges, conflicts disclosed                            |

   \
   \
   Each role stakes independently and is accountable only for its own verifiable obligations, an error in one function never penalizes honest participants in another. Compensation across all roles is utility-based: fees and network incentives for verifiable work performed, maturing after validation windows close, never a function of merely holding the token.

2. **Economic Separation of Duties:** Payment, security capital, and user protection are deliberately separated: the **network token** carries participation and accountability; **external security collateral** adds economic security for higher-value services, forfeitable only on objectively provable violations; **stable settlement assets** support customer payment, refunds, and the Safety & Coverage Reserve, so user protections never depend on the token's market price at the moment protection is needed.

#### The Economic Loop

Customers purchase verifiable services in settlement assets. Revenue is routed under disclosed templates to the contributors who delivered the work, the security providers whose collateral protected it, and protocol reserves. Contributors receive utility-based compensation for verifiable work, including infrastructure operation under service-level obligations (Anchors), successful evidence-backed challenges funded from violators' forfeited collateral (Sentinels), and usage-based fees for authored reasoning workflows the network executes. Incentives mature only after validation and challenge windows close, and incentive budgets step down as real usage replaces bootstrap emissions.