Vote Snapshotting

In liquidity mining programs, a snapshot of a user's LP token balance in a pool is taken at each reward epoch. This calculates their proportional share of the emission rewards. Similarly, staking protocols use periodic snapshots to calculate and distribute staking rewards fairly among all stakers at that moment in time.

While crucial for fairness, snapshotting has key considerations:

• Oracle Reliability: The snapshot data must be sourced from a trusted node or oracle.
• Timestamp vs. Block Number: Using block number is more secure than timestamp, as timestamps can be slightly manipulated by miners/validators.
• Off-Chain vs. On-Chain: Off-chain snapshots (like Snapshot.org) are efficient but require a separate trusted execution step. On-chain snapshots (in the governance contract) are more secure but gas-intensive.
• Sybil Resistance: Snapshotting alone doesn't prevent users from splitting holdings across multiple addresses, which is why some protocols use quadratic voting or proof-of-personhood systems.

The security of a vote depends entirely on the integrity of the snapshot block. If an attacker can influence the chain's state at that block (e.g., through a reorg attack or exploiting a vulnerable oracle), they can manipulate the recorded balances. This makes the snapshot block a high-value target, requiring strong assumptions about chain finality and data availability.

Snapshotting creates a point-in-time record that can become outdated. Key risks include:

• Inactive Delegates: Voting power may be locked with delegates who are no longer active or malicious.
• Airdrop Exploits: Sybil attackers can concentrate tokens into many wallets before a snapshot to claim disproportionate airdrops or governance power, then disperse them after.

Snapshots can distort token holder behavior and protocol economics:

• Reduced Liquidity: Large holders may lock tokens in wallets instead of liquidity pools to maintain voting power, reducing market depth.
• Staking Dilemmas: Tokens staked in yield farms or security staking (e.g., PoS validators) are often excluded, forcing a choice between governance rights and economic yield.

Technical flaws in the snapshot process itself are a critical vulnerability:

• Oracle Reliance: Many protocols use external snapshot tools (e.g., Snapshot.org) or oracles, introducing a trusted third-party.
• Data Source Integrity: The process must correctly query token balances from the correct contract at the exact block, which can fail due to node syncing issues or contract upgrade edge cases.

A snapshot represents a historical state, leading to governance decay:

• Stale Mandate: Decisions are made by holders from the past, not necessarily the current token distribution, reducing legitimacy over long voting periods.
• Reduced Participation: Voters who acquire tokens after the snapshot cannot participate, potentially lowering engagement and creating a governance elite.

Protocols implement several strategies to address snapshot limitations:

• Multi-Block Averaging: Using an average balance over several blocks to mitigate single-block manipulation.
• Delay & Challenge Periods: Introducing a time delay between snapshot and vote to allow challenges to the recorded state.
• On-Chain Enforcement: Moving critical execution to on-chain governance after an off-chain snapshot vote, ensuring state changes align with the current chain.

The specific block height at which token balances are recorded to determine voting power for a proposal. This prevents manipulation by locking the eligible voter set and their weight at a fixed point in time, independent of when votes are actually cast. Key aspects include:

• Deterministic: The block number is specified in the proposal.
• Immutable: Balances cannot be changed retroactively.
• Transparent: Anyone can verify balances at that historical block.

A system where token holders (delegators) can assign their voting power to another address (delegate) who votes on their behalf. In snapshot-based governance:

• Snapshot Captures Delegations: The delegate's voting power is the sum of all tokens delegated to them at the snapshot block.
• Passive Participation: Delegators do not need to vote directly.
• Common in Proof-of-Stake: Used by protocols like Compound and Uniswap, where delegates often run validator nodes.

The quantitative influence a participant has in a governance decision, typically calculated as the number of governance tokens held at the snapshot block. It is the core output of the snapshotting process.

• 1 Token = 1 Vote: The most common model.
• Weighted Models: Some systems apply quadratic voting or time-lock multipliers.
• Non-Transferable: Voting power is fixed after the snapshot; buying more tokens later does not increase power for that proposal.

The two primary architectures for executing votes after a snapshot.

• On-Chain Voting: Votes are submitted as transactions, and tallying is performed by a smart contract. This is binding and autonomous (e.g., Compound Governor).
• Off-Chain Voting (Snapshot): Votes are signed messages aggregated off-chain, with results used to guide multisig execution. This is gas-free and flexible but not automatically enforceable.
• Hybrid Models: Use an off-chain snapshot for signaling, followed by an on-chain execution vote for a whitelisted set of addresses.

A mechanism that grants boosted voting power to users who lock their tokens for a specified duration. Snapshotting is critical here.

• Time-Weighted Power: Voting power is proportional to token amount * lock time.
• Snapshot of Lock Status: The protocol snapshots both the locked amount and remaining lock time.
• Protocol Incentive: Used by Curve Finance and others to align long-term stakeholders with protocol health.

A governance-adjacent use case where a historical snapshot of user activity or token holdings is used to distribute new tokens or rewards.

• Merit-Based Distribution: Rewards past contributors or users.
• Immutable Eligibility: The snapshot creates a fixed, verifiable recipient list.
• Prevents Sybil Attacks: By using a past state, it's harder to manipulate eligibility by creating fake accounts after the announcement.