# Swimming with Whales: Analysis of Power Imbalances in Stake-Weighted Governance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.19264 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.19264/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 20 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Proportional Participatory Budgeting with Additive Utilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.13276/) (2020)
- [The (Computational) Social Choice Take on Indivisible Participatory Budgeting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.00621/) (2023)
- [Power in Liquid Democracy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07070/) (2020)
- [Compounding of Wealth in Proof-of-Stake Cryptocurrencies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.07468/) (2018)
- [Social Choice Around the Block: On the Computational Social Choice of Blockchain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07777/) (2022)
- [Proportional Budget Allocations: Towards a Systematization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12324/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Voting methods weighted by stakes are the fundamental governance paradigm in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains. Such a paradigm is known to be prone to power distortions: a few users possessing large stakes may completely control decision making, even without owning the totality of the stakes. We study this phenomenon through the lens of computational social choice, focusing on the extent of power imbalances in stake-weighted voting when power is quantified using the Penrose-Banzhaf power index. Our work presents both analytical and empirical contributions. Analytically, we demonstrate that while a perfect alignment between power and relative stake ownership is generally unattainable, it can be approximated in expectation under specific conditions. Empirically, using data from a real-world on-chain governance system (Project Catalyst), we provide a more fine-grained understanding of the power imbalances that are likely to occur in current stake-weighted governance systems.