Why bonds?
Bonds make publishing economically meaningful. A bond:
- Demonstrates real-world commitment — anyone can post a key, only a serious publisher posts collateral.
- Pays for the slashing pool that funds investigations and remediation.
- Creates a financial cost for malicious behavior, on top of any reputational damage.
Bond tiers
| Tier | Min bond | Typical kinds |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 SIGIL | static datasets, docs |
| 1 | 5 SIGIL | tools, skills, models |
| 2 | 25 SIGIL | agents, workflows, services |
| 3 | 100 SIGIL | agents that hold credentials, custodians, payment processors |
The home registry rejects entries whose declared bond is below the protocol minimum for the entry's kind.
Slashing
Bonds are slashable for:
- Verified malware
- Provable license fraud
- Identity impersonation
- Supply-chain attacks (e.g. publishing under a compromised key)
Slashing requires a quorum of ENR-anchored auditors. Slashed funds flow to the affected consumers (proportional restitution) and to the slashing pool.
Refunds
Voluntarily retiring an entry after a 90-day cool-down releases the bond back to the publisher's wallet. The cool-down protects against "rug pull" patterns where a publisher withdraws bond before exploits land.