Reward Schemes and Committee Sizes in Proof of Stake Governance

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Birmpas, Georgios, Lazos, Philip, Markakis, Evangelos, Penna, Paolo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Birmpas, Georgios
Lazos, Philip
Markakis, Evangelos
Penna, Paolo
author_facet Birmpas, Georgios
Lazos, Philip
Markakis, Evangelos
Penna, Paolo
contents In this paper, we investigate the impact of reward schemes and committee sizes motivated by governance systems over blockchain communities. We introduce a model for elections with a binary outcome space where there is a ground truth (i.e., a "correct" outcome), and where stakeholders can only choose to delegate their voting power to a set of delegation representatives (DReps). Moreover, the effort (cost) invested by each DRep positively influences both (i) her ability to vote correctly and (ii) the total delegation that she attracts, thereby increasing her voting power. This model constitutes the natural counterpart of delegated proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols, where delegated stakes are used to elect the block builders. As a way to motivate the representatives to exert effort, a reward scheme can be used based on the delegation attracted by each DRep. We analyze both the game-theoretic aspects and the optimization counterpart of this model. Our primary focus is on selecting a committee that maximizes the probability of reaching the correct outcome, given a fixed monetary budget allocated for rewarding the delegates. Our findings provide insights into the design of effective reward mechanisms and optimal committee structures (i.e., how many DReps are enough) in these PoS-like governance systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_10525
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reward Schemes and Committee Sizes in Proof of Stake Governance
Birmpas, Georgios
Lazos, Philip
Markakis, Evangelos
Penna, Paolo
Computer Science and Game Theory
In this paper, we investigate the impact of reward schemes and committee sizes motivated by governance systems over blockchain communities. We introduce a model for elections with a binary outcome space where there is a ground truth (i.e., a "correct" outcome), and where stakeholders can only choose to delegate their voting power to a set of delegation representatives (DReps). Moreover, the effort (cost) invested by each DRep positively influences both (i) her ability to vote correctly and (ii) the total delegation that she attracts, thereby increasing her voting power. This model constitutes the natural counterpart of delegated proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols, where delegated stakes are used to elect the block builders. As a way to motivate the representatives to exert effort, a reward scheme can be used based on the delegation attracted by each DRep. We analyze both the game-theoretic aspects and the optimization counterpart of this model. Our primary focus is on selecting a committee that maximizes the probability of reaching the correct outcome, given a fixed monetary budget allocated for rewarding the delegates. Our findings provide insights into the design of effective reward mechanisms and optimal committee structures (i.e., how many DReps are enough) in these PoS-like governance systems.
title Reward Schemes and Committee Sizes in Proof of Stake Governance
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.10525