Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced A new private on-chain voting tool for Ethereum developers called “Cicada”.
In a blog post, a16z developer Michael Zhu acknowledged existing on-chain voting features, but said many of those systems are fully open and transparent.
Running tally privacy
By offering closed ballots, Cicada addresses issues found in public ballots, such as vote manipulation and encouragement of inappropriate voters.
Cicada specifically allows privacy of running aggregates. In other words, the number of votes for each option is hidden until the voting closes. This approach relies on time-locked puzzles that hide individual votes for a period of time, and homomorphic time-locked puzzles that combine other puzzles to hide the overall tally.
Zhu said Cicada could also be used for voter anonymity and voting privacy by adding membership proofs for zero-knowledge groups.
Cicada is a Solidity library, meaning it is compatible with the programming language used in Ethereum smart contracts. Zhu said the library is efficient enough to be used on Ethereum’s mainnet (as opposed to the Layer 2 network).
Not recommended for real world use
Vermillion confirmed on twitter He said that on-chain voting is “not yet ready for high-stakes real-world use cases,” but expressed hope for future progress.
On the other hand, many blockchain projects employ governance systems that rely on on-chain voting. For example, Uniswap and other DeFi platforms use on-chain governance to choose which blockchain to deploy, while Makers of stablecoin projects use on-chain voting to configure reserves and other decisions. Decide on a decision.
The article Ethereum Gets Private On-Chain Voting Tool Through a16z’s ‘Cicada’ first appeared on CryptoSlate.
