Overview
Snapshot is a decentralized voting platform widely used by DAOs for off-chain governance. It allows projects to create proposals and let token holders vote with a weight based on their token balance at a specific point in time. Because voting happens off-chain, it costs no gas, making high-frequency community participation practical. It is the de facto standard for DAO signaling as of 2026.
How It Works
A project registers a space on Snapshot and configures the token or strategy that determines voting power. Proposals are created in that space, and voters sign messages with their wallets to cast votes, which are weighted according to their balance at the proposal's snapshot block. Results are tallied on the platform, and if a proposal requires on-chain execution, the community typically follows up with an on-chain transaction.
Why It Matters
Snapshot reduces the friction and cost of governance, enabling broad participation in DAO decisions. It is also a vulnerability surface: strategies and voting configurations must be set correctly, and the final outcome still depends on a separate on-chain step. For anyone involved in DAOs, Snapshot is the interface where most day-to-day governance happens.
Related Concepts
Snapshot is the voting layer for DAOs and Governance Tokens, sitting between off-chain discourse and on-chain execution. It complements frameworks like Gnosis Safe for treasury management and relies on wallet signatures for vote authenticity.