Pillaging these funds seems like it's almost a trivial endeavor assuming
It is, and in fact the authors point this out in the original paper:
"…if the size of this group is greater than 1/α and the group can perfectly coordinate, there is no limit (other than the budget) to how much it can steal."
I have to say that the biggest flaw I see isn't theoretical, it's practical.
Exactly. The theory is fine -- given all these assumptions hold. In practice, these assumption don't hold.
For example, one of the assumptions is absence of sybil attacks, fraud, or collusion. Obviously, these assumptions may not hold.
You can defend against sybil attacks in various ways. But how do you stop people from colluding (e.g. I $10 to 1000 friends, tell them they can keep $5 if they contribute $5 to my project)? There are collusion-resistant forms of quadratic funding, such as COCM, but these do not have the desirable theoretical properties (such as optimality) that vanilla QF has.
It's funny that a cooky proposal originating from crypto, which is incredibly inefficient precisely because it has to defend against sybil attacks (unlike permissioned systems), assumes the absence of sybil attacks. Hilarious, really.
Comments
It is, and in fact the authors point this out in the original paper:
"…if the size of this group is greater than 1/α and the group can perfectly coordinate, there is no limit (other than the budget) to how much it can steal."
Exactly. The theory is fine -- given all these assumptions hold. In practice, these assumption don't hold.
For example, one of the assumptions is absence of sybil attacks, fraud, or collusion. Obviously, these assumptions may not hold.
You can defend against sybil attacks in various ways. But how do you stop people from colluding (e.g. I $10 to 1000 friends, tell them they can keep $5 if they contribute $5 to my project)? There are collusion-resistant forms of quadratic funding, such as COCM, but these do not have the desirable theoretical properties (such as optimality) that vanilla QF has.
It's funny that a cooky proposal originating from crypto, which is incredibly inefficient precisely because it has to defend against sybil attacks (unlike permissioned systems), assumes the absence of sybil attacks. Hilarious, really.