Good point, I guess we are proving why the resorted to using numbers in the first place. Unless you have a verification point that includes a "charge". Indirect or direct, your platform gets flooded with spam/bots. Does anyone have ideas of how this problem can be solved while also preserving privacy?

Problem: A system that enforces a monetary penalty to prevent sign up abuse while also not tying a users identity to said system.

Without doing some pain in the a crypto stuff it seems like there are no easy solutions other than the #