# How HCP-MAD Cuts Multi-Agent Debate Costs by 71% Without Losing Accuracy - Date: 2026-04-14 - Category: Agentics The USTC paper shows that consensus-as-stopping-signal resolves 80% of queries at 980 tokens — less than a fifth of what standard multi-agent debate burns through. The real story: MAD was never broken, it just had no off switch. ---