One form of defense to keeping Ethos a credible and safe place is in the form of limiting the number of invitations in Ethos.

Another way of defending Ethos' network of credible users is to create a bonding period with new users and whoever invited them. This ensures that users opt more towards inviting credible people over those who are untrusted.

The bonding period is currently for 90 days. During this bonding period, the inviter takes on 20% of the impact of the user they invited's net credibility score change.

As an example, if you invite someone that starts with a credibility score of 1200 (Neutral) and during those 90 days they gain +400 credibility score, you'll earn +40 credibility score for yourself. This reward encourages users to invite other trustworthy people.

If during those 90 days they lose 800 credibility score, you'll lose 160 credibility score for yourself, to discourage people inviting untrustworthy people.

Once the bonding period has completed, the scores then move independently from one another.