The Role of Sybil Resistance in the future of DAOs

Addressing sybil attacks for more inclusive models

A roadblock in democratic systems

Constructing voting systems based solely on the total number of tokens held offers a means to prevent fraudulent voting and the potential for Sybil attacks. However, it simultaneously delays the development of democratic models that promote wider community engagement and collaboration on a given project or protocol. Governance models established on token ownership naturally restrict the number of individuals who can participate, exclusively favoring those with significant economic means or influence.

In contrast, democratic models provide an equal voice to all members of an organization in the decision-making process, regardless of their financial input. Therefore, an effective and accessible solution that resists Sybil attacks is crucial to the development of new paradigms with alternative voting systems. In particular, shifting from a "1 token = 1 vote" model to a "1 person = 1 vote" or quadratic voting system has the potential to unlock more efficient and inclusive governance mechanisms.

Enhancing Governance Frameworks via Efficient Sybil Defenses

The prevention of Sybil attacks is of great importance in establishing a "1 person, 1 vote" system. Failure to prevent such attacks can result in a single individual gaining control over a majority of the votes, causing an imbalance of power in decision-making that goes against the democratic ideal of equal representation.

Sybil attacks have a constant presence in the web and remain an ongoing challenge. Existing solutions often compromise web3's anonymity principles and/or fail to meet scalability requirements. The challenge at hand is to develop a solution that enables communities to include unique certified members, safeguarding their privacy and avoiding the collection of personal data to minimize doxxing risks.

Building an alternative system where ownership of the protocol is distributed across the entire community, rather than being concentrated among members with the highest investment, starts with an effective Sybil defense. DAOs require constant development, and restricting them to a single system will slow down their advancement. To strengthen DAOs and enable them to meet diverse market demands, as many different governance structures as possible needs to be explored.

Fair DAOs Begin with Proof of Personhood

The notion of Proof of Personhood (PoP) centers on enabling users to attest to their authenticity while maintaining their privacy. This fully automated process is fundamental in aiding communities in their efforts to eliminate bots and duplicate users, thereby saving considerable time. PoP relies on artificial intelligence and algorithms to identify humans, instantly verifying a user's personhood without requiring any data to be stored.

The solution features a user-friendly interface that streamlines the onboarding process, enabling users to complete the process in mere seconds without waiting for video or social proof validation. Through a liveness scan, the PoP system instantaneously confirms a user's humanity. Prior to deleting the face scan, the biometric data undergoes conversion to a vector representation of the user's face, which cannot be “rolled back” to a human visible face image. We refer to it as a Face Graph and it is the core of PoP.

We regard PoP as the bedrock of trust for Web3 and the broader internet, upon which all relationships are founded. We firmly believe that signaling one's personhood is in the users' best interests and responsibility, unlocking improved paradigms in their communities that promote a robust online economy and a trustworthy democracy.

To learn more, refer to our PoP solution page for a step-by-step PoP process.

Proof of Personhood solution