How Does a Sybil Attack Pose a Threat to Quadratic Voting Systems?
A Sybil attack involves a single entity creating multiple fake identities or wallets to circumvent the quadratic cost function. Since quadratic voting is designed to empower many small votes, an attacker can split their large stake into many smaller wallets.
Each small vote is cheaper than a single large vote, effectively neutralizing the intended effect of the quadratic cost. Robust identity verification is crucial to counter this vulnerability.
Glossar
Fake Identities
Deception ⎊ Fake Identities in decentralized governance systems pose a significant threat, allowing malicious actors to accrue voting power or influence proposals using non-genuine attestations of participation or stake.
Sybil Attack
Architecture ⎊ The Sybil attack, within cryptocurrency, options trading, and financial derivatives, exploits the inherent design vulnerabilities of distributed systems reliant on identity-based consensus.
Identity Verification
UserAssurance ⎊ Identity Verification, in the context of regulated or KYC-compliant DeFi platforms, is the process of confirming a user's real-world identity against official documentation before granting access to leveraged trading or certain derivative products.
Voting
Governance ⎊ Voting within cryptocurrency, options trading, and financial derivatives represents a mechanism for stakeholders to exert influence over protocol parameters, listing decisions, or the direction of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
Quadratic Voting
Formula ⎊ The core principle employs a cost function where the expense to cast additional votes increases quadratically, typically requiring $n^2$ tokens for $n$ votes.
Quadratic Cost
Function ⎊ Quadratic Cost refers to the non-linear mathematical function governing the expenditure required to purchase voting power in Quadratic Voting systems, a mechanism increasingly utilized in decentralized finance (DeFi) governance.