Snapshot adds 'shielded voting' to DAOs to help solve voter apathy
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Snapshot adds 'shielded voting' to DAOs to help solve voter apathy
Transparency has long been a norm for blockchain enthusiasts and an essential feature of DAO governance. Now, that may change, and it's not all bad. Popular DAO voting site Snapshot today announced the launch of shielded voting to limit transparency deficiencies and protect voters from “public tyranny.” A decentralized autonomous organization is an organizational structure where control is spread rather than hierarchically.
They typically use smart contracts on the blockchain, in which participants use governance tokens to transparently vote on proposed actions. Snapshot believes that the DAO regime is still in its infancy, and transparency has allowed for more democratic oversight. However, as The DAO matures, the project says this transparency hints at some less-desirable features.
“On the one hand, the transparency of digital governance has been one of The DAO’s strengths because of the element of social control surrounding votes,” Nathan van der Heyden, Head of Snapshot Ecosystem, told Decrypt. “On the one hand, the transparency of digital governance has been one of The DAO’s strengths because of the element of social control surrounding votes,” Nathan van der Heyden, head of the Snapshot ecosystem, told Decrypt.
"On the other hand, updating results with each vote can lead to voting apathy, low participation and information asymmetry." Launched in August 2020 by Snapshot Labs for the Balancer community, Snapshot is a free-to-use platform that has become a popular place for over 2,000 decentralized communities to measure member sentiment on a specific task. Van der Heyden says it aims to provide a good middle ground between transparency and privacy.
While the proposal is in progress, the only information available to anyone, including snapshots, will be the total amount of voting power already deployed. "When voting ends, all votes are revealed - as well as who voted for whom," van der Heyden continued. "In that sense, we don't lose many gains, but we will certainly miss the sense of urgency that can arise in tightly contested votes."Van der Heyden said, “Our philosophy is to give DAOs as many options as possible. There is still a lot to explore and figure out – we want to make sure they have the tools to do that.”