What is a Sybil attack? Many identities, one actor

A Sybil attack uses many identities controlled by one actor to inflate influence. It exploits systems where an account or node is assumed to represent an independent participant.

Example: one vote per account

Imagine a poll with 100 genuine participants and one vote per account. An actor creating 900 extra accounts can appear to represent 900 separate people. In a resource-weighted network, creating 900 identities does not itself create 900 times the computing power or economic collateral.

PoW weighs computational work; PoS weighs stake. Ethereum’s consensus explanation places that resource weighting alongside other network rules. Limiting the value of cheap identities does not prevent every kind of attack.

A campaign reporting many wallets does not automatically have the same number of independent users. Similar wallet behavior is not conclusive proof of common ownership either; false positives are possible. The distinction is useful when interpreting participation figures, not a recommendation to manufacture accounts.