I think you can't give verifications unless you've gotten some from an initial 5 that are at the head of the chain of trust

Ok this doesn't seem very thought out. It says:

"You can only give one verification for every verification you receive, so verifications must be earned and are thoughtfully given"

That means that there are effectively only 5 tokens that will ever exist and there are only 5 potential outstanding opportunities to verify a new person.