Hello everyone! RPIP-4, which describes Snapshot voting procedures for the pDAO, was recently voted into effect. Late in the process (during the vote), some concerns with it were raised. Namely, the quadratic voting algorithm described in RPIP-4 is possible for whales to exploit through the relatively nominal cost of making additional nodes to escape the quadratic vote power reduction applied to each node.
Several mitigations have been discussed, such as moving to a linear (1-RPL-1-vote) voting algorithm or requiring a higher (e.g. 66%) majority instead of a simple majority for votes to succeed. Another option is keeping the quadratic algorithm but increasing sybil resistance through other methods like BrightID.
For the unfamiliar, BrightID is a “Proof of Humanity” network which attempts to combat sybil attacks. This is accomplished by requiring an (anonymous) connection with others and penalizing anyone who provides positive connections for duplicate/bot accounts. BID has plenty of flaws and can be exploited relatively easily on a small-scale basis, but as far as I know, it can still reliably prevent large-scale sybil attacks.
I should note that, at least personally, I am not in favor of requiring BrightID, but we could still use it to ensure greater integrity of quadratic voting without requiring it. Some ideas worth exploring are additional vote weight for BID-verified voters, capping the vote weight of non-BID-verified voters, etc.
Even if we don’t require BrightID, using it to influence the signaling vote is a big deal, so we should be aware of its implications in this discussion. Despite the simplicity of BID, it’s likely that a significant bloc of voters will not go through the process to become verified. This naturally creates a division in power between the more engaged and less engaged voters, which is a step away from my personal ideal of a 1-vote-1-person governance structure, but this may be desirable to some – one could argue that those who are willing to go through a small annoyance to gain extra vote power are more deserving of that power. Of course, linear voting would arguably be an even bigger step away from my described ideal, so I’m still in favor of exploring BrightID even though I dislike some implications.
On a technical level, there is already a snapshot strategy which incorporates BrightID (see below), but custom work is needed to implement for Rocket Pool specifically if this is the direction we decide to take. Regardless, I believe it is feasible based on my understanding of Snapshot.
How does the community feel about BrightID or other PoH solutions as a mitigation for quadratic vote gaming?
Does the community have other ideas to improve vote fairness?
Are there other issues with RPIP-4 which we should discuss?
Please also use this thread to discuss this and other potential improvements to RPIP-4.
