PROOF OF HISTORY
The mill needs a clock before it needs a vote.
PoH is not consensus. It is a cryptographic timeline. Continuous SHA-256: each output is the next input. Sequential. Verifiable. You cannot skip ahead without doing the hashes.
Transactions get mixed into the chain at a specific count. That count is the timestamp. Not 12:02:01. An upper and lower bound on when the event sat in the global state machine.
Leaders crank the VDF to reach their assigned slot and produce a block. Validators re-run the hashes from published state, input, and count. No central clock. No extra coordination. SHA-256 maps to chips people already have.
Sealevel schedules the work. PoH says when the work happened.
This is the mill. Not a candle. Not leftover PumpSwap air.