Gnosis and Snapshot create tool to bind DeFi governance votes on-chain

Published at: March 16, 2021

Gnosis and Snapshot have collaborated to develop SafeSnap, a product that allows for automatically executing successful governance votes on Snapshot. The module, which combines features of Gnosis Safe Multisig and the Snapshot off-chain governance platform, was released on Tuesday.

Snapshot is a “governance-as-a-service” provider for a number of decentralized finance projects, including Yearn.finance, SushiSwap, Balancer, Aave, Cream and others. It provides a simple interface to create governance proposals and lets users vote on them by connecting their wallets and the governance tokens contained within. The actual voting process is conducted off-chain, however, to save on gas costs and complexity.

Snapshot proposals are not binding. Team members and multisignature key holders for the projects are expected to execute the proposals, but the process relies entirely on their goodwill. SafeSnap changes that by introducing the option of automatically executing transactions that would enable the proposal once the governance vote passes.

SafeSnap uses the Reality.eth crowdsourced oracle to verify the outcome of the off-chain vote. Once verified by the oracle, the transaction triggering the particular change can be triggered by anyone. The requirement of manual intervention is a design necessity given by smart contract limitations.

The SafeSnap mechanism would make Snapshot-based projects closer to Compound’s governance model. Proposals on Compound can only be submitted if they include the Solidity code that would directly implement the idea. The on-chain governance module then automatically integrates the new code if the vote passes.

Compound’s governance model presents relatively strong barriers to entry, while at the same time being more uncensorable and code-based, unlike the existing iteration of Snapshot votes. The SafeSnap module allows projects to choose how to implement their proposals, possibly conducting major upgrades through a more decentralized mechanism while still retaining the gas-saving measures.

Gnosis claims that projects like Yearn, dHEDGE, SushiSwap, mStable and others are set to embrace the system. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Yearn core member Tracheopteryx explained that nothing is set in stone yet, but he confirmed that “It’s one of the most promising avenues we’re considering.”

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