Snapshot is establishing a new voting framework on Layer 2 to reduce voting costs, enabling permissionless and censorship-resistant voting.

The community proposal voting platform Snapshot announced today a new on-chain voting framework called Snapshot X, formerly known as StarkVote, developed in collaboration between Snapshot and the StarkWare team. This solution aims to enhance the existing features of Snapshot in various ways.

What is Snapshot X?

Snapshot X is a voting framework built on the StarkNet Layer 2 ZK-Rollup, allowing any DAO to conduct on-chain governance on Layer 2 and execute transactions on Ethereum. This will provide users with similar security guarantees as a Layer 1 voting framework but at a fraction of the cost.

This enables users to have similar security guarantees as a Layer 1 voting framework but with significantly lower costs. The official estimate by Snapshot is that the cost of voting on Snapshot X is around 1,000 gas, making it approximately 50 to 100 times cheaper than Ethereum.

What are the advantages of using Snapshot X?

1. Trustless Execution: Snapshot X will allow DAOs to execute transactions on-chain in a completely trustless manner without relying on any human or oracle inputs. All calculations related to voting will be done on StarkNet, controlling the execution results on Ethereum.

2. Permissionless and Censorship-resistant: Space allocation, proposals, and voting will be published and verified on the StarkNet chain. The framework is entirely permissionless, allowing anyone to interact on-chain with it without the need for the Snapshot client.

3. No Expensive Checkpoints: Currently, most token contracts utilizing on-chain governance require additional functionality to store so-called checkpoints, which incur extra Gas Fee costs when transferring tokens. Snapshot X eliminates the need for such checkpoints by using storage proofs.

4. Native Ethereum Signatures Support: Since StarkNet supports native Ethereum cryptographic signatures, users can continue to interact with Snapshot in the same way without changing their preferred wallets.

5. Gas Fee-free as Before: Users can vote and create proposals by signing messages without paying gas fees, similar to how Snapshot is currently used. These messages will be sent to the Snapshot hub, which acts as a meta-transaction relayer, sending votes and proposals on Layer 2. The costs will be sponsored by the DAOs using Snapshot X.

6. Seamless Integration with Snapshot Client: Snapshot X will function as a plugin within Snapshot, allowing users to use the transaction builder to add transactions to be executed in proposals, similar to the current use of SafeSnap.

When will it be officially released?

Snapshot plans to release Snapshot X in the second quarter of 2022, initially adding a small number of DAOs to the protocol. It is expected to be open to all DAOs in the third quarter of 2022.

During the initial release, the Snapshot X framework will only support ERC-20 and delegated voting strategies, followed by support for ERC-721, and eventually multi-chain. Additionally, over time, Snapshot plans to expand the scope of strategies and different voting systems.