Trustless is marketed as a virtue that removes the need for trust, yet the term itself is used to earn the very trust it claims the system does not require.
Master
The hidden part#0880
A truly trustless system need not say so. The word is a plea for trust wearing the costume of not needing any.
Open-source is trusted as if inspected, but almost no user reads the code, so the trust rests on the mere possibility of review rather than any review performed.
Adept
The hidden part#0877
Open code can be checked; that is not the same as checked. When everyone trusts the eyes of others, no eyes are on the code at all.
A green audited badge calms a reader far more than the report it links to, because the badge is read and the report, with its caveats and unresolved issues, is not.
Novice
The hidden part#0876
A badge is read in a glance; a report is read by almost no one. Safety is inferred from the symbol, not from the findings it links to.