Sybil-Resistant Voting

The most common mechanism, where voting power is directly proportional to the amount of a governance token held. This creates a cryptoeconomic cost for acquiring influence, as an attacker must acquire a significant portion of the token supply. Examples include Compound's COMP and Uniswap's UNI governance. A key trade-off is the potential for plutocracy, where wealth concentration leads to centralized control.

Voting rights are granted to entities who lock (stake) a native asset as a security deposit. This mechanism, used by networks like Cosmos and Polkadot, directly ties governance influence to financial skin-in-the-game. The staked assets can be slashed for malicious behavior, creating a strong disincentive for Sybil attacks. Validators in these systems are the primary governance participants.

Aims to establish a one-person-one-vote model in decentralized settings by using unique human verification. Projects like Proof of Humanity and Worldcoin use biometrics (e.g., iris scans) or video verification to issue a single, non-transferable identity credential (Soulbound Token). This prevents Sybil attacks by making identities costly to fake, though it raises significant privacy concerns.

A mechanism that reduces the power of large token holders by making the cost of additional votes increase quadratically. To cast N votes on a proposal, a user must pay a cost proportional to N². This allows expression of intensity of preference while making it economically prohibitive for a Sybil attacker to dominate. It was pioneered in Gitcoin Grants for public goods funding.

Voting power is derived from a web of trust or social capital rather than pure financial capital. In systems like SourceCred or certain DAO tools, influence is earned through contributions and can be delegated. This mimics off-chain organizational trust but is vulnerable to collusion and the formation of centralized "influence cartels" if not carefully designed.

A enhancement to token-weighted voting that grants additional voting power to tokens that are committed for a longer duration. For example, in systems like Curve's veCRV, locking tokens for 4 years provides maximum voting weight. This aligns long-term incentives and increases the cost of a Sybil attack, as the attacker's capital must be immobilized for an extended period.

The most common implementation where voting power is proportional to the quantity of a governance token held. This creates a capital cost for Sybil attacks, as an attacker must acquire a significant economic stake.

• Examples: Compound (COMP), Uniswap (UNI), Maker (MKR).
• Trade-off: Aligns influence with financial stake but can lead to plutocracy.

A mechanism where the cost of acquiring additional votes on a single proposal increases quadratically. This limits the influence of concentrated capital and favors a broader distribution of preferences.

• Implementation: Gitcoin Grants uses quadratic funding for public goods.
• Key Feature: Makes it economically prohibitive for a Sybil attacker to dominate a single decision.

Leverages the validator set and staking mechanics of a Proof-of-Stake blockchain for governance. Voting power is tied to staked assets, which are subject to slashing for malicious behavior.

• Examples: Cosmos Hub (ATOM), Polkadot (DOT).
• Sybil Resistance: Attackers must control a large portion of the staked supply, incurring massive capital cost and slashing risk.

A time-based mechanism where a voter's influence increases the longer their tokens are committed to a proposal. This introduces a time cost to Sybil attacks and signals stronger preference.

• Implementation: Used by Commons Stack and Aragon.
• Mechanism: Discourages fleeting, malicious proposals as attackers must lock capital for extended periods.

Systems that verify unique human identity to issue one vote per person, directly preventing Sybil attacks. This decouples influence from capital.

• Examples: BrightID, Worldcoin's Proof of Personhood.
• Challenge: Relies on off-chain verification and raises privacy concerns, but provides strong Sybil resistance for one-person-one-vote models.

Allows token holders to delegate their voting power to experts or representatives. This can consolidate informed decision-making but creates delegate-centric Sybil risks.

• Examples: ENS DAO, Gitcoin DAO.
• Sybil Consideration: Attackers could create many deceptive delegate identities, making reputation systems and stake weighting critical.

The most common mechanism, where voting power is proportional to the quantity of a governance token held. While simple, it is not inherently Sybil-resistant, as wealth concentration can lead to plutocracy. Attackers can accumulate tokens or borrow them (vote lending) to gain disproportionate influence. Examples include Compound's COMP and Uniswap's UNI governance.

Systems that cryptographically verify a unique human behind each vote to prevent Sybil attacks. This can involve:

• Biometric verification (e.g., Worldcoin's orb).
• Government ID attestation.
• Social graph analysis (e.g., BrightID). The primary trade-off is between decentralization and privacy, as these systems often require trusted oracles or centralized verification services.

Requires voters to lock or bond capital (e.g., tokens) for a period to participate. This increases the cost of a Sybil attack, as the attacker must lock significant capital for each fake identity. Used in conviction voting and some quadratic funding implementations. A key limitation is that it can exclude less-capitalized, legitimate participants.

Aims to measure the intensity of preference by allowing voters to cast multiple votes at a quadratically increasing cost. The formula cost = (votes)^2 makes it exponentially expensive for a Sybil attacker to concentrate votes. However, it remains vulnerable to Sybil attacks without a robust identity layer and can be gamed through collusion (e.g., vote splitting among colluding identities).

Allows token holders to delegate their voting power to experts or representatives. While efficient, it introduces Sybil risks in the delegation layer. An attacker could create many Sybil identities to appear as reputable delegates, tricking users into delegating to them. The security depends on the delegation platform's ability to verify delegate identity and reputation.

No system is perfectly Sybil-resistant. Key limitations include:

• Collusion: Entities can coordinate off-chain to bypass on-chain checks.
• Oracle Risk: Identity systems rely on external data providers.
• Plutocracy: Wealth-based systems are Sybil-resistant but not equitable.
• Complexity vs. Usability: More robust systems often have higher participation barriers. The security is a continuous trade-off between decentralization, scalability, and Sybil resistance.

A consensus mechanism where validators are selected to propose and validate blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they stake as collateral. It provides inherent sybil resistance because acquiring a majority of the staked tokens is prohibitively expensive, making attacks economically irrational. This economic bond is the basis for many sybil-resistant voting systems in governance.

A voting mechanism where the cost of casting additional votes for a single option increases quadratically. A voter allocates a budget of voice credits. The cost of n votes for one proposal is n² credits. This system limits the influence of highly motivated minority groups (a form of sybil attack within a single wallet) and better aggregates the intensity of preferences across a community.

Systems designed to cryptographically verify that each participant is a unique human, not a bot or sybil. Techniques include:

• Biometric verification (e.g., Worldcoin's Orb)
• Social graph analysis (e.g., BrightID)
• Government ID attestation The goal is to enable one-person-one-vote systems in digital spaces by solving the unique-human problem directly, rather than relying on economic stakes.

A mathematical curve that defines the relationship between a token's supply and its price. Used in curation markets and some governance models, they can impose a financial cost for sybil attacks. To gain influence, an attacker must buy tokens along the curve, dramatically increasing the price for subsequent tokens, making large-scale manipulation economically unfeasible and detectable.

A governance model proposed by Robin Hanson where voters bet on outcomes instead of voting on proposals directly. Markets are created for conditional predictions (e.g., "Will this policy increase metric X?"). The policy expected to produce the best outcome, according to the market price, is implemented. Sybil resistance comes from the financial stake required to move prediction markets, deterring spam.

A continuous voting system where voting power accrues over time as tokens are locked on a proposal. It measures the strength of conviction, not just momentary sentiment. This introduces a time-cost for sybil attackers, who must lock capital for extended periods to exert influence, and protects against snapshot-based manipulation. It favors long-term, committed stakeholders.