Rational collusion occurs when participants in a system secretly cooperate because it is economically beneficial for them to do so. In decentralized networks, this refers to a scenario where a group of actors, acting in their own self-interest, coordinate to manipulate the protocol or extract unfair value, such as censoring transactions or double-spending. This behavior is “rational” if the expected gains from collusion outweigh the potential costs or penalties imposed by the system’s design. Preventing rational collusion is a primary objective of robust economic security models in blockchain.
Context
The discussion around rational collusion is central to the design of secure and fair consensus mechanisms in proof-of-stake blockchains and other distributed systems. Key debates address the effectiveness of various deterrence mechanisms, such as slashing conditions and random validator selection, in making collusion economically irrational. A critical future development involves advanced game theory analysis and protocol adjustments to continuously raise the cost of collusion, ensuring network integrity against increasingly sophisticated attacks.
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