What Is a ‘Governance Attack’ and How Can a DAO Prevent It?

A governance attack, or 51% attack, occurs when a malicious entity gains control of a majority of the governance tokens, allowing them to pass self-serving proposals, potentially draining the treasury. Prevention methods include quadratic voting, time-locks on proposal execution, and having a high quorum requirement for votes.

Distributing tokens widely and utilizing anti-whale mechanisms also makes acquiring a majority stake prohibitively expensive.