Would they still include these transactions if the delegate who is being voted
out promised to pay 1 milion dollars if they didn't?
I'm analyzing a situation when delegates bribe other delegates in exchange of
keeping their position in top 101. Every rational delegate will accept the
money. There can be some delegates who will reject the money but depending on
the offered amount the number of such delegates can be less than 10-20-30. In
this case the other (majority) will ignore their blocks if these blocks contain
voting-out transactions.
You can always (not only try to) buy votes. Though you need to keep it a secret.
Also, you do not gain anything by having a single delegate active. You need
plenty to be able to fake price feeds in the market, which can be observed by
(other) people and make them downvote you. If you manage to buy 51% you can fuck
with the system, as you can with ANY consensus algorithm, because by definition
51% is majority and defined "consensus"
Through I don't believe you can "buy" 51 delegates. Once you just "ask" an
honest guys he will certainly ring bells and warn the community about what's
going on.
Further, if 51% is not achieved yet but an attack has been identified, the
stakeholders can still vote for a hard fork to "freeze" malicious signing keys.
What do we get here? We get that if mining is too profitable then
delegates may get enough money to "buy" permanent position in top 101. Any
expert in Game Theory here?
No game theory expert here, but I can tell you that delegates cannot get enough
delegate pay to pay for their positions 'on ther own'. There will always be a
need for more money to flow in if someone outside wants your delegate to be in
the top 101.