Staking Mechanism

Why project owners stake

• Prevent collusion / copying: Owners cannot safely copy contributor code because their stake remains locked until all platform-tracked issues are resolved and the contract confirms matching GitHub state.

• Prevent unauthorized merges: Owners also cannot merge the code of any contributor unless the issue is formally assigned to that contributor in the smart contract. Any mismatch detected through GitHub API reconciliation leads to slashing of the owner’s stake.

• Prevent incentive "shortcuts": If the owner merges code off-platform (bypassing the contract), the GitHub API check will show the smart contract array still non-empty → owner forfeits stake.

• Aligns behavior: Owners are economically motivated to use Creo’s flow (approve/merge through the platform) rather than shortcutting contributors.

Why solvers (issue assignees) stake

• Sybil resistance: Requiring stake increases cost for fake accounts and mass registrations.

• DoS mitigation: Staking prevents mass spamming/claiming of issues and makes denial techniques expensive, also the deadline feature makes it impossible to block the issues for a long time.

• Exclusivity & deadlines: When a solver stakes for an issue, they get exclusive rights and an agreed deadline. If the solver misses the deadline, the issue is reopened for others, but the solver’s stake is safely returned (so they are not penalized for failing) also prevents the issue being assigned to the same contributor. This protects contributors from financial harm while keeping issues moving forward but at the same time preventing any kind of DoS attacks also we can use things like Anon Aadhaar in the future to ensure a single identity for all people working on the platform

• Beginner protection: Unstaked overruns are ineligible for rewards, ensuring newcomers are not sidelined by late overruns.

Release / slashing rules (smart-contract logic)

• Each issue is a struct with metadata and status; the contract periodically reconciles it with GitHub data.

• Owner stake is returned only when the contract confirms the issue array is emptied (i.e., issues resolved via platform-approved flow).

• If off-platform merges, unauthorized merges, or rule violations are detected, the responsible party’s stake is slashed or redistributed per protocol rules.

Creo approach towards verifiable AI

• Reputation & optimistic accountability: Agent identities and scores are recorded on a chain (e.g., Fetch.ai). If an agent behaves maliciously, its identity can be reported and reputation reduced — similar to optimistic rollups where validators can be slashed later. Over time, malicious agents lose selection priority.