Summary DAO Decentralization Voting-Bloc Entropy and Bribery arxiv.org
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The text discusses the lack of equitable participation in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and proposes a method called Voting-Bloc Entropy to measure similarity of utility functions, highlighting the risk of bribery and presenting a Dark DAO implementation that attacks Ethereum DAOs, ultimately offering a new perspective on decentralization and guidance for maintaining DAO integrity.
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Slide Presentation (11 slides)
Key Points
- Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) use smart contracts to foster communities working towards common goals.
- Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) is a new metric proposed to measure the similarity of participants' utility functions across a set of proposals in DAOs.
- The authors present the risk of systemic bribery with increasing DAO decentralization and demonstrate the threat with a Dark DAO prototype.
- VBE offers insights into the effects of different practices on decentralization in DAOs and can guide the design and deployment of DAOs to enhance their decentralization and combat threats such as bribery.
- Dark DAOs pose a significant threat to the decentralization and integrity of DAOs, engaging in opaque vote buying, bribery, and corruption.
- The authors provide guidance for DAO design and deployment, including suggestions for vote delegation, voting privacy, and addressing voter bribery.
- The importance of collecting voting data, preserving DAO voting data, and standards in this area are emphasized.
- Further research is needed on the impact of VBE on decision making in DAOs, privacy, harmonizing conflicting goals, forking, escape hatches, and exploring different social choice and voting techniques.
Summaries
46 word summary
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations lack equitable participation. The authors propose Voting-Bloc Entropy to measure similarity of utility functions. They find a risk of bribery and present a Dark DAO implementation that attacks Ethereum DAOs. VBE offers a new perspective on decentralization and guidance for maintaining DAO integrity.
68 word summary
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) lack equitable participation. To address this, the authors propose a new metric called Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) to measure similarity of participants' utility functions. They find a risk of systemic bribery in decentralized DAOs and present a Dark DAO implementation that attacks Ethereum DAOs, highlighting governance concerns. VBE offers a new perspective on decentralization and the authors provide guidance for combating threats to DAO integrity.
271 word summary
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) aim to foster communities with common goals using smart contracts. However, current definitions of decentralization in DAOs do not fully capture equitable participation. To address this, the authors propose a new metric called Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) to measure the similarity of participants' utility functions across proposals. VBE is used to analyze the impact of vote delegation, proposal bundling, bribery, and quadratic voting on decentralization in DAOs.
A key finding is the risk of systemic bribery in increasingly decentralized DAOs. The authors present a practical implementation of a Dark DAO, which leverages trusted execution environments (TEEs) to attack Ethereum DAOs, highlighting concerns for DAO governance.
The paper introduces DAOs and their decentralized governance structure, where decisions are made through community votes on proposals. Most DAOs experience low voting participation and concentration of voting power among a small group of token holders, raising concerns about centralization and vulnerability to bribery.
To measure decentralization, the authors propose VBE as a metric that captures the centralizing effects of aligned utility functions among voters. The paper presents theoretical results using VBE to analyze the effects of various practices on decentralization in DAOs, including apathy, herding, bribery, delegation, voting slates, and multiple accounts.
Overall, VBE offers a new perspective on DAO decentralization by considering the alignment of utility functions among voters. The authors also discuss the concept of Dark DAOs as a threat to decentralization and integrity, providing a fully functional private Dark DAO as an example. They propose practical guidance for DAO design and deployment to combat threats such as bribery, while highlighting challenges associated with forking and escape hatches in DAOs.
596 word summary
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) aim to foster communities working towards common goals using smart contracts. However, existing definitions of decentralization in DAOs do not fully capture key aspects of equitable participation. In response, the authors propose a new metric called Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) to measure the similarity of participants' utility functions across proposals. VBE is used to analyze the impact of vote delegation, proposal bundling, bribery, and quadratic voting on decentralization in DAOs.
A significant finding is the risk of systemic bribery in increasingly decentralized DAOs. The authors present the first practical implementation of a Dark DAO, a mechanism for privacy-preserving corruption of identity systems used in DAO voting. The Dark DAO prototype leverages trusted execution environments (TEEs) in the Oasis Sapphire blockchain to attack Ethereum DAOs, highlighting potential future concerns for DAO governance.
The paper introduces DAOs and their decentralized governance structure. DAOs operate on rules encoded and executed on a public blockchain, making decisions through community votes on proposals. The DAO treasury consists of crypto assets held in a smart contract, ensuring adherence to community decisions and operational transparency.
The popularity of DAOs is rapidly increasing, with the total value across all DAO treasuries exceeding $17 billion. However, most DAOs experience low voting participation and concentration of voting power among a small group of token holders, raising concerns about centralization and vulnerability to bribery.
To measure decentralization in DAOs, the authors propose VBE as a metric that captures the centralizing effects of aligned utility functions among voters. VBE measures entropy over voting blocs based on utility functions rather than individual token holdings, providing a comprehensive understanding of decentralization.
The paper presents theoretical results using VBE to analyze the effects of various practices on decentralization in DAOs. These results include the centralizing effects of apathy, herding, and bribery, as well as the decentralizing effects of delegation. The authors also discuss the implications of voting slates and the impact of owning multiple accounts on decentralization.
Overall, VBE offers a new perspective on DAO decentralization by considering the alignment of utility functions among voters. The metric provides insights into the effects of different practices on decentralization and can guide the design and deployment of DAOs to enhance their decentralization and combat threats such as bribery.
The concept of Dark DAOs, decentralized cartels engaging in opaque vote buying and bribery, poses a significant threat to the decentralization and integrity of DAOs. Successful bribery in highly decentralized systems requires coordination among various smallholders, while in more centralized systems, large whales can corrupt a few tokens to ensure their desired outcome. The scale of bribery is directly related to the level of decentralization in a DAO.
Dark DAOs can subvert quadratic voting through coordinated price manipulation and exploiting the amplification of power for small accounts. They can also target privacy pools and undermine the perceived integrity of elections. A Dark DAO prototype has been implemented using key encumbrance and Oasis Sapphire.
The authors propose practical guidance for DAO design and deployment, emphasizing the need to develop countermeasures against Dark DAOs and highlighting the challenges associated with forking and escape hatches in DAOs.
In conclusion, the authors propose VBE as a metric to measure DAO decentralization and discuss its implications for various practices. They present the concept of Dark DAOs as a threat to decentralization and integrity, providing a fully functional private Dark DAO as an example. The authors provide guidance for DAOs, including suggestions for vote delegation, voting privacy, and addressing voter bribery. They also identify open research questions and emphasize the practical implications of their work for DAO governance.
637 word summary
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) aim to foster communities working towards common goals using smart contracts. However, existing definitions of decentralization in DAOs do not fully capture key aspects of equitable participation. In response, the authors propose a new metric called Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) to measure the similarity of participants' utility functions across proposals. VBE is used to analyze the impact of vote delegation, proposal bundling, bribery, and quadratic voting on decentralization in DAOs.
A significant finding is the risk of systemic bribery in increasingly decentralized DAOs. To illustrate this threat, the authors present the first practical implementation of a Dark DAO, a mechanism for privacy-preserving corruption of identity systems used in DAO voting. The Dark DAO prototype leverages trusted execution environments (TEEs) in the Oasis Sapphire blockchain to attack Ethereum DAOs, highlighting potential future concerns for DAO governance.
The paper introduces DAOs and their decentralized governance structure. DAOs operate on rules encoded and executed on a public blockchain, making decisions through community votes on proposals. The DAO treasury consists of crypto assets held in a smart contract, ensuring adherence to community decisions and operational transparency.
The popularity of DAOs is rapidly increasing, with the total value across all DAO treasuries exceeding $17 billion. However, most DAOs experience low voting participation and concentration of voting power among a small group of token holders, raising concerns about centralization and vulnerability to bribery.
To measure decentralization in DAOs, the authors propose VBE as a metric that captures the centralizing effects of aligned utility functions among voters. VBE measures entropy over voting blocs based on utility functions rather than individual token holdings, providing a comprehensive understanding of decentralization.
The paper presents theoretical results using VBE to analyze the effects of various practices on decentralization in DAOs. These results include the centralizing effects of apathy, herding, and bribery, as well as the decentralizing effects of delegation. The authors also discuss the implications of voting slates and the impact of owning multiple accounts on decentralization.
Overall, VBE offers a new perspective on DAO decentralization by considering the alignment of utility functions among voters. The metric provides insights into the effects of different practices on decentralization and can guide the design and deployment of DAOs to enhance their decentralization and combat threats such as bribery.
The concept of Dark DAOs, which are decentralized cartels engaging in opaque vote buying and bribery, poses a significant threat to the decentralization and integrity of DAOs. Successful bribery in highly decentralized systems requires coordination among various smallholders, while in more centralized systems, large whales can corrupt a few tokens to ensure their desired outcome. The scale of bribery is directly related to the level of decentralization in a DAO.
Dark DAOs can subvert quadratic voting through coordinated price manipulation and exploiting the amplification of power for small accounts. They can also target privacy pools and undermine the perceived integrity of elections. A Dark DAO prototype has been implemented using key encumbrance and Oasis Sapphire. The costs of participating in a Dark DAO include setting up an encumbered account, enrolling in encumbrance policies, entering the Dark DAO, and claiming bribe payments.
The authors propose practical guidance for DAO design and deployment based on the theoretical and experimental results presented. They emphasize the need to develop countermeasures against Dark DAOs and highlight the challenges associated with forking and escape hatches in DAOs.
In conclusion, the authors propose VBE as a metric to measure DAO decentralization and discuss its implications for various practices. They present the concept of Dark DAOs as a threat to decentralization and integrity, providing a fully functional private Dark DAO as an example. The authors provide guidance for DAOs, including suggestions for vote delegation, voting privacy, and addressing voter bribery. They also identify open research questions and emphasize the practical implications of their work for DAO governance.
959 word summary
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) use smart contracts to foster communities working towards common goals. However, existing definitions of decentralization in DAOs fall short of capturing key properties of equitable participation. To address this, the authors propose a new metric called Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) that measures the similarity of participants' utility functions across a set of proposals. VBE is used to analyze the effects of vote delegation, proposal bundling, bribery, and quadratic voting on decentralization in DAOs.
One of the key findings is the risk of systemic bribery with increasing DAO decentralization. To demonstrate this threat, the authors present the first practical realization of a Dark DAO, a mechanism for privacy-preserving corruption of identity systems used in DAO voting. The Dark DAO prototype uses trusted execution environments (TEEs) in the Oasis Sapphire blockchain to attack Ethereum DAOs, highlighting the potential future concern for DAO governance.
The paper introduces the concept of DAOs and their decentralized governance structure. DAOs operate on rules encoded and executed on a public blockchain, making decisions through community votes on proposals. The treasury of a DAO consists of crypto assets held in a smart contract, enforcing adherence to community decisions and ensuring operational transparency.
The popularity of DAOs is rapidly rising, with the aggregate value across all DAO treasuries exceeding $17 billion. However, most DAOs today exhibit low voting participation and concentration of voting power among a small set of token holders, raising concerns about centralization and vulnerability to bribery.
To measure decentralization in DAOs, the authors propose VBE as a new metric that captures the centralizing effects of aligned utility functions among voters. VBE measures entropy over voting blocs based on utility functions rather than individual token holdings, providing a more comprehensive understanding of decentralization.
The paper presents several theoretical results using VBE to analyze the effects of various practices on decentralization in DAOs. These results include the centralizing effects of apathy, herding, and bribery, as well as the decentralizing effects of delegation. The authors also discuss the implications of voting slates and the impact of owning multiple accounts on decentralization.
Overall, VBE offers a new perspective on DAO decentralization by considering the alignment of utility functions among voters. The metric provides insights into the effects of different practices on decentralization and can guide the design and deployment of DAOs to enhance their decentralization and combat threats such as bribery. The paper concludes with practical guidance for DAO design and deployment based on the theoretical and experimental results presented.
The concept of Dark DAOs, which are decentralized cartels that engage in opaque vote buying, bribery, and other forms of corruption, poses a significant threat to the decentralization and integrity of DAOs. Successful bribery in a highly decentralized system requires large-scale coordination among various smallholders, while in a more centralized system, large whales only need to corrupt a few tokens to guarantee their desired outcome. The scale of bribery is directly related to the level of decentralization in a DAO. Internal bribery, where players within the system are bribed, and external bribery, where an external entity coordinates with whales to achieve their desired outcome, are both possible in highly decentralized DAOs. Quadratic voting, a mechanism that aims to dilute the influence of whales in elections, can be subverted by Dark DAOs through coordinated price manipulation and exploiting the amplification of power for small accounts. Dark DAOs can also target privacy pools and undermine the perceived integrity of elections. A Dark DAO prototype has been implemented using key encumbrance and Oasis Sapphire, a trusted execution environment. The prototype ensures guaranteed vote delivery by controlling the voter's voting credential while maintaining the bounded scope property. The security of the Dark DAO prototype relies on the integrity and liveness of Oasis Sapphire and assumes an idealized model of its trusted execution environment. The costs of participating in a Dark DAO include setting up an encumbered account, enrolling in encumbrance policies, entering the Dark DAO, and claiming bribe payments. Pre-signing attacks can be mitigated through enrollment policies that anchor message characteristics to specific timestamps. Ethical considerations are taken into account by open-sourcing the code to raise awareness of the risks posed by Dark DAOs and enable the community to develop effective countermeasures. Future enhancements could include lightweight proofs of complete knowledge and the use of confidential DAOs with encumbered treasury funds. Overall, Dark DAOs present a significant challenge to the decentralization and integrity of DAOs, and countermeasures must be developed to mitigate their impact.
The authors propose a metric called Voting-Bloc Entropy (VBE) to measure the decentralization of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). They define VBE as the entropy of voting blocs and show how different practices can impact the decentralization of DAOs. They also highlight the potential threat posed by Dark DAOs, which are designed to subvert votes in other DAOs. The authors present a fully functional private Dark DAO and discuss the risks associated with its implementation. They provide guidance for DAOs, including suggestions for vote delegation, voting privacy, and addressing voter bribery. The authors emphasize the importance of collecting voting data to facilitate decentralization measurement and highlight the need for standards in preserving DAO voting data. They also identify open research questions, such as the impact of VBE on decision making in DAOs and the correlation between high VBE and community growth. The authors acknowledge the limitations of existing verifiable end-to-end voting systems in token-weighted variants and propose future research on privacy and harmonizing conflicting goals. They also mention the challenges of forking and escape hatches in DAOs and call for further exploration of their impact on decentralization. The authors conclude by emphasizing the practical implications of their work for DAO governance and the need to experiment with different social choice and voting techniques in the real world.