Use case · Game anti-cheat
Hardware identity at signup. No kernel driver required.
Players want hardware-rooted integrity without a kernel driver. Root Herald is the 'not-kernel' answer — TPM-attested signup binding that cuts off the cheap-smurf and ban-evasion paths long before a player reaches ranked.
Economics
Where smurfs go uneconomic.
Fresh Valorant smurfs trade for $2.50–$15, CS2 for $10–$56. The $30+ hardware floor kills the fresh-account market entirely and forces ranked-up RMT into capital-bound operations.
Gaming smurf accounts
Valorant fresh $2.50–$15 · CS2 $10–$56 · ranked-up $30–$150
Per-identity yield
$2.50 – $150
Rational ceiling
< $30 fresh, < $100 ranked
Fresh smurfs collapse; high-rank RMT is partial.
The cases we close
Smurfs, bots, ban-evasion.
Fresh-smurf creation
Spawn a fresh account in a VM, level it with bots, sell it to a Bronze player who wants to grief Silvers: rejected at chain validation. VMs don't attest under strict.
Ban-evasion at re-signup
The banned chip has a known EKpub. Its deviceId stays the same across emails, names, and payment methods, so banlist enforcement survives every HWID-spoof workaround.
Bot-leveling farms
50 bots from 50 VMs collapse to 0 valid attestations. 50 bots from 50 real Chromebooks give 50 deviceIds, but in one ASN, one geo, one OEM model. Easy to surface.
The case that remains
High-rank RMT, honestly.
Selling a Diamond-rank account for $150 still clears the $30 floor. The defense shape changes: deviceId tells you when the same chip is being passed between players (rank-boosting), and posture deltas tell you when the same chip suddenly performs like a different person.
Why not kernel anti-cheat
The Vanguard problem.
Kernel anti-cheat works at runtime and pays a high political cost: player backlash, system-instability concerns, a surface for kernel CVEs. It also binds identity at game-launch, after the account exists, not at signup. Root Herald shifts the gate to signup, in userspace. The chip is the anchor; we never need to be in the kernel.
Real-world signals
The category is already moving.
FACEIT requires TPM 2.0 for ranked play. Epic Fortnite requires Secure Boot. The Riot Vanguard backlash created demand for an architectural alternative: hardware-rooted, but not kernel.
Ship a hardware gate at signup. Stop fighting kernel battles.
Free up to 10K attestations a month, no card.