Feature Highlight: Snapshot Integration

As Commonwealth continues to expand the tooling stack for our communities, we are excited to highlight one of our tooling integration partners, Snapshot. Snapshot is a tool used for off-chain governance that enables gasless voting. For many of our communities built on EVM chains, such as Stargate, 1inch, LinksDAO, and others, Snapshot serves as a pivotal tool driving their governance processes.

Snapshot

Snapshot currently holds the position as the leading off-chain voting platform for web3 communities, primarily due to its high customizability for voting criteria. This feature makes it particularly well-suited for communities that demand dynamic and highly customizable voting strategies.

With Snapshot, communities have the ability to establish their dedicated "space" on the platform. In these spaces, administrators wield authority over proposal submission requirements and the selection of voting power tokens. The system captures a "snapshot" of token balances at the block when a proposal is submitted to determine voting weight. Tokens transferred after this point influence voting power solely for subsequent proposals. Proposal creators within Snapshot can further tailor their proposals by customizing the voting period duration, vote options, and proposal descriptions, adding a layer of flexibility to the governance process.

Snapshot x Commonwealth

Communities can seamlessly associate a Snapshot space with their Commonwealth community, enabling the integration to feed all past and present Snapshot proposals while facilitating voting and proposal creation via the community interface. Currently, Commonwealth boasts two product integrations with Snapshot:

1. Bidirectional Integration - Users can create, vote, and execute all Snapshot votes on Commonwealth, and this data is reciprocally populated on Snapshot and vice versa. This bidirectional integration is particularly beneficial for record-keeping on both platforms, preventing the loss of information.
2. One-click proposal templates - Simplifying the initiation of Snapshot voting, this feature streamlines the setup of a vote by populating the proposal template directly from the forum.

The Snapshot integration has resulted in a notable 30% increase in participation among token holders in Commonwealth communities compared to those hosted on alternative Web2 governance platforms. This integration aligns with Commonwealth's goal of aiding community management by consolidating information and utility within a singular, user-friendly interface. This enhances the overall user experience for governance participation by centralizing pertinent information, eliminating the need for users to navigate through disparate systems, and ensuring a smoother and more intuitive governance process.

Furthermore, communities can link the correlated Commonwealth discussion to their Snapshot page and vice versa, a recommended best practice that enhances visibility and accessibility for both the Snapshot vote and the Commonwealth discussion.

Community Highlight: Stargate DAO

Stargate, one of the largest EVM communities, strategically leverages Commonwealth's most popular product combination—our crypto-native forum and Snapshot integration. With over 800K+ voters, Stargate DAO notably distinguishes itself as the Snapshot community with the highest volume of votes and participants. Check out this example of Stargate DAO utilizing our Snapshot integration by linking between the vote and discussion.

As communities scale, it gets increasingly difficult and complex to keep the community up to date with different proposals going through the governance process. The co-location of Snapshot proposals alongside their originating discussion posts within the Commonwealth platform makes it easier for community members to access relevant information and links. Moreover, Commonwealth's integration seamlessly unifies the voting and discussion stages, enabling users to easily trace the thread and associated discussions leading to a specific proposal with a single click.

Getting Started

Looking to get started with the Snapshot integration on Commonwealth? Check out our loom tutorial on how to utilize our Snapshot integration and visit our documentation for more information on -

• Linking Snapshot spaces to Commonwealth communities
• Creating Snapshots via Commonwealth
• Voting on Snapshots via Commonwealth
• Linking Snapshot votes and Commonwealth discussions

The integration of Snapshot into Commonwealth's tooling stack has been instrumental in enhancing the governance processes of our communities and fostering stronger participation.