proof-of-conduct

Proof of conduct

Jet, 2026-09-26: "let every key judge listings based on SERIOUS proof of work and reputation." A key earns standing by doing things that cost time, sats or patience, and that anyone can check. Nothing else counts.

The rule

A fact may be shown next to a key only if every device, replaying the same relay events and reading the same chain, arrives at the same fact. If two devices can disagree, it is not a fact and it is not shown (brief 06 E: "settled 0 disputes" here, "1" there, was worse than no number).

Verifiable sources, in order of strength:

1. The timechain. Bond deposits and their age, escrow deposits, settlement transactions, which leaf spent them (cooperative or arbitrated), block heights and therefore elapsed time. Cannot be faked or backdated.
2. Signed events by the counterparty. A seller's RELEASE vote, a buyer's "paid" event, an arbiter's ruling. Signed by someone else, so the key cannot invent them.
3. Signed events by the key itself, only where the chain of references bounds them: an event that references another cannot be earlier than it, so speed measured between a counterparty's event and the key's response is honest to within relay latency.

Not sources: thumbs, free-text reviews, self-reported counts, anything one device saw and another didn't. Ratings may exist as colour, never as a number that ranks.

What earns standing

• Age: first verifiable act (first bond deposit height, first completed trade) — the older, the harder to fake.
• Volume settled: sats through completed escrows where this key was a party, on chain or ecash with a counterparty-signed COMPLETE.
• Speed: time from "the ball is in your court" to your signed answer — locking after a join, confirming after "paid", signing a payout after approval, an arbiter ruling after a dispute. Fast signers rank above slow ones. Arbiters already live by this; sellers and buyers do too.
• Bond: sats locked and for how long, verified on chain.
• Disputes: opened against the key vs. ruled in its favour, from arbiter rulings only.

What costs standing — and is shown loudly

• Approved, then didn't sign. The key voted RELEASE, a winner-authored payout existed, and the escrow was spent through the arbitrated leaf instead. Three verifiable facts. Shown on every listing and card of that key, in red, for everyone: "Made a buyer wait for the arbiter after agreeing to pay — once / N times." No expiry.
• Lost disputes, expired locks the key was responsible for, listings that lapsed with a seated buyer.

A new key has none of this, which is the point: rotating away from a mark also rotates away from the age, volume and bond that made the key worth trading with. Say so on fresh keys: "New here · no history yet."

Showing it

Plain words, one line per fact, the strongest facts first. The bar and the listing card show the same thing (see chama-bar). Numbers appear only with their source: "12 trades settled on chain", "bonded 100k sats for 41 days", "signs within 2 hours (median of 9)". No composite score in v1; composites hide which fact did the work.

Tests

Every displayed fact has a pure function from (events, chain reads) → fact, with a test that two orderings of the same events give the same fact, and that a missing chain read yields "unknown", never zero.