How Does Quadratic Voting Fundamentally Differ from One-Token-One-Vote?

Quadratic voting (QV) ensures that the cost of an additional vote increases quadratically with the number of votes already cast. In contrast, one-token-one-vote (OTV) assigns voting power linearly to token holdings.

For example, under OTV, 100 tokens yield 100 votes. Under QV, to get 10 votes, a holder might need 100 tokens ($10^2$), but to get 20 votes, they would need 400 tokens ($20^2$).

This structure makes it prohibitively expensive for large holders to buy a majority of votes, giving smaller holders a louder collective voice.