outcome of the polymarket is determined by the votes of UMA voters
Polymarket's presidential election betting volume just surpassed 2b today
UMA's oracle system is the Optimistic Oracle(OO), this poses a risk of 51% attack
There was voter’s issue about “Was Barron involved in $DJT?” betting market
UMA voters voted NO for the above betting market, and Polymarket announced through X that this decision was wrong. As a result, those who had bet on YES in the market received a 'refund', also showing the flaw that UMA's optimistic oracle is not always optimistic
and the other problems going on here..
It is very similar to other chain’s 51% attack concept; Means not impossible but highly improbable. Voters are incentivised to vote as they are rewarded(Incentivize those who vote correctly, and penalize those who don't) but, everyone votes in secret
![I haven't researched very deeply into how the UMA oracle works, but it doesn't seem to vote on all bets
I haven't researched very deeply into how the UMA oracle works, but it doesn't seem to vote on all bets
source from https://dune.com/uma_protocol/uma-protocol
Token distribution
(Here, UMA staked in Across Protocol is OO to protect Across Protocol, so it will be excluded)
Among them, the contracts participating in UMA voting are the top 2nd and 3rd holders, and the total balance is 34,734,995UMA(At the time of writing, calculated at $2.5, it is $86.8 million)
In theory, an OO attack is possible if you purchase 44.2M worth of UMA and vote after staking
Let’s look at the list of whales staking on UMA voting.