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[2512.16167] Ev-Trust: An Evolutionary Stable Trust Mechanism for Decentralized LLM-Based Multi-Agent Service Economies
Summary
The paper presents Ev-Trust, an evolutionary stable trust mechanism designed for decentralized LLM-based multi-agent service economies, addressing vulnerabilities in agent interactions.
Why It Matters
As LLM-based agents increasingly engage in decentralized interactions, ensuring trust is critical to prevent systemic failures. Ev-Trust offers a novel solution by embedding trust evaluation into revenue structures, promoting cooperation and stability in multi-agent systems.
Key Takeaways
- Ev-Trust utilizes evolutionary game theory to enhance trust among agents.
- The mechanism converts trustworthiness into a competitive advantage, reducing deceptive behaviors.
- Experimental results show Ev-Trust improves collective revenue and resilience against malicious strategies.
- The approach integrates interaction history into agents' revenue functions.
- The theoretical foundation is based on Replicator Dynamics, proving stability of cooperative strategies.
Computer Science > Multiagent Systems arXiv:2512.16167 (cs) [Submitted on 18 Dec 2025 (v1), last revised 23 Feb 2026 (this version, v2)] Title:Ev-Trust: An Evolutionary Stable Trust Mechanism for Decentralized LLM-Based Multi-Agent Service Economies Authors:Jiye Wang, Shiduo Yang, Jiayu Qin, Jianbin Li, Yu Wang, Yuanhe Zhao, Kenan Guo View a PDF of the paper titled Ev-Trust: An Evolutionary Stable Trust Mechanism for Decentralized LLM-Based Multi-Agent Service Economies, by Jiye Wang and 5 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Autonomous LLM-based agents are increasingly engaging in decentralized service interactions to collaboratively execute complex tasks. However, the intrinsic instability and low-cost generativity of LLMs introduce a systemic vulnerability, where self-interested agents are incentivized to pursue short-term gains through deceptive behaviors. Such strategies can rapidly proliferate within the population and precipitate a systemic trust collapse. To address this, we propose Ev-Trust, a strategy-equilibrium trust mechanism grounded in evolutionary game theory. Ev-Trust constructs a dynamic feedback loop that couples trust evaluation with evolutionary incentives, embedding interaction history and reputation directly into the agent's expected revenue function. This mechanism fundamentally reshapes the revenue structure, converting trustworthiness into a decisive survival advantage that suppresses short-sightedness. We provide a rigorous theoret...