arXiv:2611.05586v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As autonomous AI agents enter permissionless onchain markets, selecting new service providers remains a core challenge. Existing reputation systems depend on scarce resources like human curation, identity credentials, or voluntary reviews, while naive volume rankings are vulnerable to Sybil attacks. We evaluate whether existing onchain payment histories can yield provider ratings that are resilient against Sybil attacks. Using a 157-day dataset comprising 66M agentic transactions worth $6.1M across 16 blockchains, we model payment flows as a bipartite graph between buyers and providers. A provider's rating is derived from graph paths linked to a buyer's existing trusted network. We propose three Sybil-resistant rating algorithms: a max-flow rating and two relaxed algorithms optimized for stronger rating performance. Evaluating these algorithms against simulated adversaries across 813 buyers, we show that rating manipulation costs 20% of those buyers' total spend and is around 23x harder to manipulate than the standard similarity rule (collaborative filtering).
Cognitive Bias Signatures in Search-Equipped LLM Agents: A Stage-Resolved Analysis