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Slashing is the economic penalty that keeps intel quality high on Sleuth Intel. When accepted intel turns out to be wrong — or worse, deliberately manipulative — the system redistributes value from the offender to the platform participants who were harmed or who caught the error. Slashing acts on aSLEUTH balances only. It never touches SLEUTH tokens in your wallet or wages you’ve already vested.
No slashing occurs during the beta period. The team manually filters all submissions during beta, so economic penalties are not yet live.

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What Slashing Touches

1

aSLEUTH balance only

Slashing deducts from your aSLEUTH balance — the on-chain career record that tracks your contribution history. Your actual SLEUTH token holdings are never at risk.
2

Never vested wages

SLEUTH wages you’ve already earned and vested are untouchable. Slashing draws first from your unvested wages, then from your raw aSLEUTH balance.
3

Negative balances are recoverable

Your aSLEUTH balance can go negative. When it does, your UI shows a recovery target — typically +$50 — so you always know what it takes to get back to neutral. Accumulating high-grade accepted intel is the path back.

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The Three Slash Grades

When bad intel is confirmed through the head hunting process, the severity of the slash depends on the harm caused:
A Grade 1 determination means your entire aSLEUTH balance is burned, all linked accounts are permanently banned, and all unvested wages are forfeited. You have 30 days to submit an appeal — if the ruling is upheld after review, the consequences are final.

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The Protection Fund

For Grade 2 incidents, the platform’s Protection Fund tops up the victim’s payout to 50% of their verified loss, capped at $10,000 per incident. If the offender’s aSLEUTH balance covers less than 50%, the Protection Fund covers the remainder up to the cap.

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Head Hunting: Reporting Bad Intel

Head hunting is the mechanism for flagging accepted intel on the knowledge tree that turned out to be wrong. It requires a $1,000 aSLEUTH licence — the same Tier 2 threshold as a verifier licence.
1

Identify the bad intel

Locate the accepted intel on the knowledge tree that you believe is wrong or harmful. Gather your evidence — on-chain references, timestamped sources, documented harm.
2

Submit a head hunt flag

Flag the item with your evidence and your assessment of severity (Grade 1, 2, or 3). The flag opens a 30-day appeal window during which the original submitter can contest your claim.
3

Appeal window resolves

After the 30-day window, the team reviews the flag and the appeal (if any). If your flag is upheld, slashing is applied and your reward is credited from the offender’s unvested wages first.
Head hunter rewards are sourced from the offender’s unvested wages first, before touching their raw aSLEUTH balance. This means offenders with large unvested wage buffers pay out faster.

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Wrong Flag Protection

You get 3 free wrong head hunt flags per rolling 30-day window. If your flag is rejected and you’re within that free window, no penalty applies.
On your 4th wrong flag within the same 30-day window and beyond, each rejected flag costs you a 10% slash to your own aSLEUTH balance — and that 10% is credited directly to the target you flagged. Use head hunting when you have genuine evidence, not as a harassment tool.

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Coordinated False Flagging

Organising multiple accounts to pile false flags onto a single target is treated as Grade 1 Malicious Conduct — the most severe slash tier. All participants in the coordination face 100% aSLEUTH slashing, forfeiture of unvested wages, and platform-wide bans extending to linked accounts.

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Appeals

Any slashing decision triggered by a head hunt flag carries a 30-day appeal window. During this period, the original submitter can submit counter-evidence. The team reviews both sides and makes a final determination.
Appeals are reviewed by the Sleuth Intel team, not by the verifier pool. The appeal process exists to catch false positives — not to relitigate grade disputes that were already resolved through normal belt and grading flow.