# kaal:claim:6819121-020

**Claim.** Reputation is Sybil-resistant in a way token holdings are not: a strategic actor can acquire tokens by purchase but cannot acquire reputation without making contributions that other contributors will reference favorably.

**Type.** mechanism  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- reference-weighted reputation in the WDAG architecture

**Source quote.**

> a strategic actor can acquire token holdings by purchasing tokens, but a strategic actor cannot acquire reputation without making contributions that the rest of the protocol's contributors will reference favorably.

**From.** Wulf A. Kaal, *The Institutional Deficit in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations - An Empirical Analysis* (2026), VI. Findings, Finding 3, page 20

**Cite as.** Wulf A. Kaal, The Institutional Deficit in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations - An Empirical Analysis (2026). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6819121

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `f04b274f926d23848e77b429a13227baed9858b90fec826ddaabd2acca7035fe` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Kaal%20-%202026%20-%20The%20Institutional%20Deficit%20in%20Decentralized%20Autonomous%20Organizations%20-%20An%20Empirical%20Analysis.pdf

**Topics.** reputation, consensus-and-security, dao

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