a signal whose credibility derives from the cost of producing it — the economic foundation of knowledge in cyber
mechanism
every cyberlink requires staking tokens. the conviction amount $a$ makes the assertion expensive to fake. a neuron that links frivolously burns real value; a neuron that links accurately accumulates focus
costly signals produce knowledge; cheap talk produces noise
formal grounding
the cost $c(\ell)$ of a cyberlink $\ell$ is the staked amount $a$ locked for the assertion. credibility scales with stake: high-conviction links carry more weight in the cybergraph and contribute more to the relevance machine
this principle originates in signaling theory — the same logic that governs evolution, mate selection, and market pricing. in cyber, the staking mechanism makes every assertion a costly signal by construction
relation to learning
learning incentives reward neurons whose costly signals improve the focus distribution $\pi^*$. the cost filters out low-quality assertions, ensuring that the cybergraph converges toward genuine relevance rather than spam
see cyberlink, tokens, knowledge, noise, learning incentives, focus