Snapshot - the leading governance platform

Public Good Projects Discussion
1

Project Description:

Snapshot is the leading governance platform. It allows onchain organizations to vote easily without gas fees. Its strength lies in its flexibility and high customization, catering to the diverse needs of its users. This includes options for calculating users’ voting power, selecting different voting mechanisms, and managing proposal and vote validation rules.

As the gas cost dropped with the maturity of L2s and the need for more decentralized and trustless voting grew, we developed Snapshot X, an onchain voting protocol. Snapshot X operates fully onchain using a set of modular smart contracts, making it censorship resistant. It features a highly customizable UX, allows for trustless execution and can use cross-chain voting power and execution, while keeping gas costs to the minimal extent possible.

Snapshot is a textbook public good, with the following characteristics:

  • Non-rivalrous & non-excludable
  • Provides essential governance infrastructure that individual projects would struggle to build
  • Benefits the entire Web3 ecosystem by standardizing governance practices
  • Creates network effects: more users → more experimentation → better governance patterns
  • Reduces entry barriers for new DAOs to emerge and promotes participation in decentralized governance

Resources:

Public Repository: Snapshot Labs · GitHub

Budget Breakdown:

Our budget covers compensation for a core team of 8 contributors, legal and compliance expenses, infrastructure costs and security audits.

  • Milestone 1: $350,000 - Q4 2024
    • Unify our API which is currently split between Snapshot and Snapshot X
    • Make Snapshot v2 UI feature complete with v1 and migrate all users
  • Milestone 2: $350,000 - Q1 2025
    • Integrate Governor protocol into Snapshot
    • Develop custom UI and template system
    • Expand Snapshot X features (multi-choice voting)
  • Milestone 3: $700,000 - Q2&Q3 2025
    • Further expand Snapshot X features (oracle-based voting, privacy features, oSnap support)
    • Improve discussion platform integration
    • Develop marketplace of onchain governance actions
    • Improve our Boost protocol for governance incentive distribution

Funding Requested: $200,000
Note that funding requested represents a small fraction of our budget, but we hope the remainder could be covered through existing grants and previous fundraising.

Plans for Different Funding Scenarios:

  • Below minimum: maintain core operations and existing features while reducing costs where possible, e.g. by reducing the scope of our roadmap or the size of the team.
  • At goal: keep current team and continue development of new features
  • Exceed goal: expand team and accelerate roadmap to include even more new features

Impact Measurement and Reporting

Short-term Outcomes (0-3 months):

  • Complete unified API integration
  • Migrate users to Snapshot v2 UI with feature parity to v1
  • Improve platform UX

Mid-term Outcomes (3-6+ months):

  • Promote adoption of onchain governance amongst our userbase through Snapshot X and Governor support
  • Develop a thriving marketplace of onchain governance actions to cater to all governance needs

Long-term Impact (5+ years):

  • Remain the standard for decentralized governance across Web3
  • Reduce barriers to participation in goverance
  • Promote adoption of decentralized governance in real-world communities

Outcomes Measurement:
Current metrics demonstrate our impact:

  • 83,688 active spaces
  • 256,358 total proposals
  • 41.6M+ votes cast
  • 3.7M+ unique voters
  • 141,204 unique proposal authors
  • $642M+ secured via oSnap

We track these metrics through our Dune Analytics dashboard: https://dune.com/shot/dashboard

Interim Reporting

Regular Updates:

  • Weekly updated Dune Analytics dashboard
  • Quarterly comprehensive updates on forum
  • Real-time updates in Discord community

Milestone Verification:

  • Public GitHub commits and releases
  • Documentation updates
  • Public communications
  • Community feedback sessions

Sustainability Plan

Our sustainability strategy includes:

  • Applying for additional public good funding (e.g. Optimism RPGF)
  • Pursuing targeted grants for custom feature development
  • Offering other specialized services to DAOs using our platform
  • Reducing operational costs through efficient infrastructure

Case Studies and Testimonials

Gathering Feedback:

  • Regular community surveys and discussions with our users
  • Direct engagement through Discord
  • Monitoring social media mentions
  • Tracking governance participation metrics

Showcasing Success:

  • Featured case studies of notable DAOs using Snapshot
  • Regular blog posts about governance innovations
  • Social media spotlights of community achievements

Advancing Values of Freedom and Privacy

Snapshot advances freedom and privacy by:

  • Reducing voting barriers to increase collective decision-making
  • Ensuring transparent and verifiable voting processes
  • Developing private voting mechanisms
  • Providing censorship-resistant governance tools

Supporting Decentralization

We support decentralization through:

  • Open-source development
  • Community-driven feature development
  • Cross-chain compatibility
  • Modular architecture allowing customization
  • Trustless execution of governance decisions

Team Information

Core team of 8 members including:

Social Proof

  • Platform of choice for +90% of all Web3 governance proposals
  • Previously received grants from Optimism, ENS, Safe, ShutterDAO and Starknet
  • Successfully raised $4M in 2021 led by 1kx
  • Trusted by major DAOs and protocols across the ecosystem

Transparency

Funding will be primarily used for:

  • Core team & contributors salaries (70%)
  • Legal & compliance (8%)
  • Infrastructure & hosting (8%)
  • Security & audits (14%)

Other funding

Grant funding received:

  • Optimism RPGF 2 & 3: 344,457 OP tokens
  • ENS grant: 46,296 ENS tokens
  • Safe grant: 544,869 SAFE tokens
  • Starknet grant: 1,000,000 STRK tokens

Other funding:

  • $4M raised in 2021 (Round led by 1kx with participation from The LAO, MetaCartel Ventures, Gnosis, StarkWare, Coinbase Ventures, BoostVC, Scalar Capital, Fire Eyes DAO, LongHash Ventures, and Coopérative Kleros)