Empirical Analysis of On-chain Voting with Smart Contracts

Publikation: Beitrag in Buch/Konferenzbericht/Sammelband/GutachtenBeitrag in KonferenzbandBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

  • Robert Muth - , Technische Universität Berlin (Autor:in)
  • Florian Tschorsch - , Technische Universität Berlin (Autor:in)

Abstract

Blockchains and smart contracts promise transparency, verifiability, and self-enforcing agreements. Against this background, novel use cases such as decentralized governance platforms that implement voting to collectively manage funds have emerged. While a number of arguments against blockchain-based voting exist, we still see a relevance. In this paper, we therefore present a quantitative analysis of the Ethereum blockchain with respect to voting. To this end, we develop a blockchain analysis toolchain that we use to analyze 3 173 smart contracts on the Ethereum Mainnet with voting functionality. We extract insights on the complexity of deployed voting methods and reveal a trend towards a centralization of funds, i.e., five smart contracts manage 98% of funds comprising more than four million USD. We additionally analyze the feasibility of on-chain voting for Ethereum as well as other well-established blockchains that are used for voting, i.e., Bitcoin and Dash.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
TitelFC Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts (WTSC~'21)
Seiten397 - 412
Seitenumfang16
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - März 2021
Peer-Review-StatusJa
Extern publiziertJa

Externe IDs

Scopus 85115842316

Schlagworte

Schlagwörter

  • Analysis, Blockchain, Smart contract, Voting