An attack where a single actor creates many fake identities (nodes, accounts, votes) in an attempt to gain disproportionate control of a distributed system.
Cardano's stake-weighted consensus mitigates Sybil attacks by tying influence to ada, not to identity counts. Producing blocks, delegating stake, and voting on governance all scale with how much ada an actor controls, so creating ten thousand empty wallets gives the attacker no more power than creating one.
Explore next
- Proof-of-Stake AttacksThe set of known attack categories against proof-of-stake blockchains and how Cardano's Ouroboros family defends against each.View term
- Proof of StakeA consensus mechanism where validators are selected to create blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they hold and stake (commit) to the network.View term
- OuroborosThe family of proof-of-stake consensus protocols that power Cardano, designed with formal security proofs against the known attack catalogue against PoS chains.View term
- Eclipse AttackA network attack where a node is isolated from honest peers and connected only to attacker-controlled nodes.View term