Harnessing the Power of Snapshot and Darwinia Chain: Building a DAO on Darwinia Chain

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DARWINIA NETWORK

4 min readJun 27, 2023

Snapshot is a platform that enables projects to create proposals for community voting using cryptocurrency. It has gained immense popularity as a leading tool for decentralized organizations (DAOs) seeking to gather insights from their audiences through blockchain technology. Snapshot supports a wide range of Web3 communities and is widely utilized by active DAOs such as Arbitrum DAO. The off-chain nature of Snapshot’s voting process enhances accessibility and encourages widespread engagement, allowing participants to contribute their voices to governance decisions without financial barriers.

It is worth noting that Snapshot has already extended support for Darwinia. Therefore, we will guide you through the steps to create a DAO on Darwinia Chain using Snapshot.

Step 1: Set or get an ENS domain

For organizations looking to use Snapshot, they need to have an existing profile on the Ethereum Naming Service, or ENS.

If you don’t already have an ENS domain, you will need to go through the registration process. Once your ENS domain is set up, your ENS name will be displayed, then simply click on it.

Step 2: Create your space profile

Once you have completed the creation of the space, you will have the option to add or update this information as needed.

Step 3: Set your very first strategy

Your space has the capability to incorporate a maximum of 8 voting strategies, which will be responsible for calculating the users’ voting power. The setting affects all proposals that will be created for that space.

During the initial setup, you will need to select one of the three strategy types listed below, and then provide the specific details for that strategy:

Token weighted voting

Voting power is weighted by the amount of the token held by the user. The token can be an ERC-20, ERC-721 or ERC-1155 token standard. Select Darwinia Network for network.

One person, one vote

This option can be utilized in two distinct manners:

Whitelist voting enables you to designate a list of addresses that will have the privilege to vote.
Ticket voting allows any wallet to participate in voting (primarily utilized for testing purposes).

Custom setup

Learn more about the strategies.

Step 4: Members

Add members to your space by selecting one of the three available roles.

After clicking the “Create” button, your Snapshot space (your DAO) on the Darwinia Chain will be immediately activated. The assigned URL will serve as a unique address, offering a convenient and direct entry point to your space. Furthermore, community members can easily find your space by searching for its name within the Snapshot platform. This platform ensures seamless participation of your community in the DAO's governance processes, enabling active contributions to collective decision-making.

For further information, refer to the Snapshot Spaces guides.

About Darwinia Network

Darwinia is a cross-chain programmable network that provides two essential solutions: Darwinia Chain and Darwinia Msgport. Darwinia Chain is a smart contract platform compatible with the EVM and shares the robust security of Polkadot. On the other hand, Darwinia Msgport acts as a crucial infrastructure enabling Dapps to seamlessly communicate and exchange messages across different blockchain networks, facilitating efficient interchain operations.