Why Your DAO's Snapshot Votes Are a Security Vulnerability

Snapshot votes are signatures, not transactions. They create a false sense of consensus without on-chain finality or execution. This decouples signaling from action, enabling vote manipulation and execution griefing.

• No Cost to Spam: An attacker can generate infinite wallets to vote, as there's no gas fee for signing.
• Execution Lag: A malicious proposal can pass a vote but be executed with different, malicious calldata.

A Snapshot vote result is just data. Its on-chain execution depends on a trusted relayer (e.g., a multisig) to bridge the result. This reintroduces a single point of failure and censorship that DAOs were designed to eliminate.

• Relayer Capture: The entity controlling the relayer key can censor or alter the execution.
• Infrastructure Risk: Relayer downtime or compromise halts all governance execution.

Frameworks like SafeSnap (by Gnosis Guild) and Zodiac reintroduce cryptographic guarantees. They use an on-chain reality.eth oracle to attest to the Snapshot result before allowing execution via a delay-module guarded Safe.

• Timelock & Challenge Period: Creates a window to detect and challenge malicious execution.
• Cryptographic Proof: The execution must match the hashed proposal details voted on.

Protocols like Compound Governor Bravo and Uniswap run votes entirely on-chain. While more expensive, they provide atomic proposal-to-execution with no trusted bridge. This is the gold standard for high-value, adversarial environments.

• Atomic Execution: Vote passage automatically triggers the state change.
• Cost as Sybil Resistance: The gas cost of proposal and voting acts as a economic barrier.

Snapshot votes are weighted by token holdings, creating a direct incentive to borrow or rent voting power. This leads to governance attacks and protocol capture.

• Attack Vector: Flash loans from Aave or Compound can temporarily control millions in voting power.
• Real Cost: A governance attack on a $100M+ TVL protocol can be executed for mere thousands in gas fees.

Snapshot signatures are mere promises; execution requires a separate, vulnerable multisig transaction. This creates a critical time lag and centralization risk.

• Execution Gap: Votes pass, but a malicious or compromised multisig signer can block or alter execution.
• Solution Path: Migrate to fully on-chain voting systems like OpenZeppelin Governor or Compound's Bravo, ensuring vote outcome equals state change.

Delegation concentrates power, creating whale-dominated governance and reducing voter participation. This defeats the purpose of a decentralized autonomous organization.

• Metric: Top 5 delegates often control >40% of voting power in major DAOs like Uniswap or Arbitrum.
• Action: Implement vote escrow models (like Curve's veCRV) or holographic consensus to incentivize long-term, informed participation over passive delegation.

Treat governance like a core protocol component. Layer specialized security tools directly into your voting process to mitigate risks.

• For Sybil Resistance: Use BrightID or Gitcoin Passport for proof-of-personhood layers.
• For Execution: Use Safe{Wallet} with Zodiac modules for automated, conditional execution of passed proposals.
• For Analysis: Monitor delegate concentration and voting patterns with Tally or Boardroom.