FAQs
Frequently asked questions.
Snapshot is an off-chain voting platform that allows DAOs, DeFi protocols, or NFT communities to vote easily and without gas fees.
The tool allows high customization of the voting process to cater to the diverse needs of the users and organizations. Customization includes different aspects like calculation of the users' voting power, selection of the voting mechanism, proposal and vote validation, and many more.
In cryptocurrency, a snapshot is a record of the state of the blockchain at a particular block height. It means that you can for example track the holdings of a specific wallet back to a specific point in time. Snapshot, the voting platform, is using snapshots to validate if voters met the voting criteria at the moment of proposal creation. If a voter acquired required tokens after the proposal has been created, these newly acquired tokens would not be used for calculation of their voting power.
You can think of a space as an organization's account on Snapshot which can be viewed by anyone visiting the platform. It serves as a hub for all proposals related to the organization and a source of information for the users. It’s also where users will vote on proposals in their community.
You need to connect to Snapshot with your wallet and fulfil the requirements defined by the voting strategies used by a specific space. For example, you might be required to hold a specific amount of the organization’s token. You can see the voting strategies directly on a proposal’s page in the Information section:
If you don’t understand why your voting power is
0 or how the strategies work in detail, we recommend reaching out to the organization directly. In most cases you don’t have the voting power because you did not hold the required tokens at the time of proposal creation. Tokens which were acquired after the proposal has been create are not taken into account for the voting power calculation.If you are eligible to vote, you can cast your vote directly from the proposal’s page. Once you select the choice(s) and confirm your vote, a new window will pop up and open your wallet extension in the browser. You will be then asked to sign a message which doesn’t create any gas fees (voting is free of charge) or affect your holdings. Signing the message is the last step of casting a vote. That’s it!
Yes. The message you sign in your wallet to cast the vote doesn’t affect your holdings or web3 identity. There are some spaces which are flagged with a warning badge if we suspect them to be fake but you don’t need to worry if you have cast a vote on their proposal. There is no risk to your funds associated with signing a Snapshot vote. You can read more about the badges in our documentation: Space badges
There might be multiple reasons for that. Most usually you didn’t have the required tokens in you wallet at the time of proposal creation. Have a look at this discussion to explore other potential reasons.
If you have an issue with your space, a proposal or voting, make sure to first read the FAQ and use a search bar in our documentation: https://docs.snapshot.org.
Before you report it make sure to browse through this FAQ, our documentation or the Discord server. There is a high chance that the issue has already been discussed before. If not, create a new thread on the helpdesk forum with the following details:
- Clear title describing your issue
- Tags which are related to the problem
- Detailed description of the issue: what action were you trying to perform (i.e. casting a vote), what error did you get
- Screenshots - provide the screenshots of the error you are getting
- URLs - applicable urls, i.e. proposal or space url
We recommend to wait for around 10 minutes and try again. If the error persist, open the console panel (right click with your mouse and click
Inspect and open the Console tab):
Make a screenshot of the panel and post a message on the helpdesk forum on Discord with the following details:
- Topic: clear on context when you got the error - Cannot cast a vote - Oops, something went wrong
- What were you attempting to do? (i.e. vote on a proposal, create a proposal)
- Did you wait for some time before trying again?
- Paste the screenshot from the console panel.
I'm receiving the error "The message timestamp is not valid. Please check the clock on your device, and make sure it is set to the correct date and time, and try again"?
The reason behind this error is that the time configured on your device isn't accurate. Refer here to troubleshoot.
You can remove your delegations by going tohttps://demo.snapshot.org/#/delegate and clicking the ❌ for the delegations you wish to remove.
Moreover, if you want to override your delegate’s vote on a proposal using the delegation strategy you can simply cast your own vote and it will override the delegate’s vote. If the delegation happened on-chain, then head to the delegation portal of the project you’re looking for and redelegate there.
I get “Your voting power could not be calculated due to misconfigured strategy or unresponsive RPC node”. What should I do?
This issue is related to either space settings or the failure of the external infrastructure that Snapshot relies on. We recommend to wait 15 minutes before trying again. If the error persists, please post a message in the Misconfigured node thread on helpdesk forum on Discord with the following details:
- URL of the proposal you were trying to vote on
- The error message you received (in this case: “Your voting power could not be calculated due to misconfigured strategy or unresponsive RPC node”)
- Did you wait for 15 minutes before trying to cast the vote again
There is a proposal that's open until tomorrow and I have a new token that was minted today, after the proposal’s creation. Can that token be used to vote?
No. Snapshot calculates the voting power on the basis of proposal creation time. If the token has not been stored in the wallet before the proposal was created it will not be taken into account.
This issue is related to either space settings or the failure of the external infrastructure that Snapshot relies on. We recommend to wait 15 minutes before trying again. If the error persists, please post a message in the thread on helpdesk forum on Discord with the following details:
- URL of the proposal you were trying to vote on
- The error message you received (in this case: “Oops, failed to check voting power”)
- Did you wait for 15 minutes before trying to cast the vote again
No. Your eligibility to vote depends on the voting strategies defined by the space and usually requires holding the organization’s token. Some spaces allow anyone to vote, however this is a rare case.
It depends on the space settings. Spaces can set up a validation strategy which defines who is eligible to create a proposal, for example you need to hold at least 1ETH in your wallet in order to do so. Moreover, spaces can specify a list of users who can create proposals by listing their wallet addresses in the space settings. You can read more about space settings and proposal validation.
Users are restricted in the proposal creation by the limits imposed on Spaces.
If a proposal does not reach the required quorum, it is considered as not passed. However, the outcome of a proposal depends on the governance rules of the specific project. Some projects might still consider the proposal for further discussion, while others might require resubmission with modifications.
Due to multiple spam attacks on Snapshot all Spaces are now required to set up a Proposal Validation.
Head here to learn how to do it: How to use validation strategies:
Yes. In order to do so navigate to https://app.safe.global and select Snapshot in the
Apps tab. Your multi-sig address will connect to Snapshot and allow you to create spaces, proposals and vote.If you are still a controller of the space you can apply to delete your space or migrate the current space to another one with different ENS. Have a look at our documentation for more details: Migrate or delete or a space
You can use sub-spaces on Snapshot. This solution allows you to link multiple spaces and set different settings for each of them depending on your needs. Have a look at our documentation to learn more: Sub-spaces
Yes. You can do it in the space settings.
Do not confuse it with changing the
ID or the ENS domain for your space. To do that, you need to migrate the space. You can read more about changing the ENS domain in our documentation: Migrate or delete or a spaceThere is a list of requirements you have to meet. Have a look at our documentation to learn more: Space verification
You cannot invalidate existing votes. However you can delete the proposal.
If you are an admin of the space or proposal’s creator you can delete the current proposal by clicking
Delete on the proposal’s page:
Then change the space settings and make sure to persist the changes.
Once the settings have been updated you can recreate the proposal from scratch.
Your proposal cannot be submitted due to a missing Voting Validation rule required with the "ticket" strategy. What does it mean?
If your space is using only a ticket Voting Strategy you are required to set a Voting Validation to minimize the risk of spam votes on your proposals.
Without it, hackers can easily create multiple accounts (each getting 1 Voting Power) and take the voting process over.
Have a read here to learn how to set it up: Voting Validation in Space Settings
Verification status is valid as long as the space meets all requirements. Make sure you meet all the requirements defined here and reach out to our team on the Discord through #helpdesk-tickets to regain the space verification.
Spaces are put in hibernation mode after 6 months of inactivity. To learn more head to Space hibernation
As a space controller or an admin you can reactive the space through the space settings by clicking
Reactivate space button. More information can be found in Space hibernationVoting strategy is a set of conditions used to calculate user's voting power. Strategies enable Snapshot to calculate the final result of voting on a given proposal. You can read more about them in our documentation: Voting strategies
You need to setup a basic voting validation which allows you to select a specific strategy and define the minimum threshold required for the user to vote. Have a look at our documentation here to learn more: Validation strategies
There might be multiple reasons for that. Most usually your voting power is equal to 0 as you didn’t have the required tokens in you wallet at the time of proposal creation. Have a look at this discussion to explore other potential reasons.
If the proposal’s space is using the delegation strategy and the address which delegated its voting power to you casts a vote on the specific proposal, your total voting power is reduced by the delegation which you received from the other address.
To give an example (using the
delegation strategy):- B has voting power of 20 of its own.
- A has voting power of 10 and delegates it to B.
- B has now a voting power equal to 30.
- If A does not vote, B’s voting power is 30.
- If A does vote, B’s voting power is 20. (30 reduced by 10)
I'm looking to set up our Snapshot space with 3 different voting strategies for 3 types of proposals. How can I do it?
You can use sub-spaces on Snapshot. This solution allows you to link different spaces and set different settings for each of them depending on your needs. Have a look at our documentation to learn more: Sub-spaces
I want to give one vote per one wallet to the voters of my space, regardless of their wallets’ balance. Which strategy should I use?
It's a two step process - you have to define a validation strategy and a voting strategy for your space.
1. Voting validation
In order to allow users to participate in voting, setup a 
When defining the voting validation parameters, you have the option to specify the
Basic voting validation in the space settings. You can find it in the voting section in space settings:
When defining the voting validation parameters, you have the option to specify the strategies for the tokens and the minScore required for voters to be eligible to vote:Here is an example of the basic strategy setup for voters holding DAI tokens:
{
"minScore": 1, # define the minimum required amount of token
"strategies": [
{
"name": "erc20-balance-of",
"params": { # define the specific token details
"address": "0x6b175474e89094c44da98b954eedeac495271d0f",
"symbol": "DAI",
"decimals": 18
}
]
}
2. Voting strategy
Use the Ticket strategy to give voting power equal to 
1 to any user eligible to vote - users that passed the voting validation described in step 1.
Yes. You can create an issue on https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot-strategies/issues and then post in on the #contributor channel on Discord.
Snapshot is not reponsible for the agreement between you and the contributors.
You can find the networks’ IDs here: https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot-relayer/blob/master/src/check.ts#L9
We use IPFS to pin the receipts of the votes. You can have a more detailed look at the IPFS article.
Yes you can, however we encourage everyone to apply for a key to ensure a continuous access to the service as the limits for the keyless access are much lower than with an API Key.
I'm trying to generate an API Key but I get an error that my address in not whitelisted. What should I do?
If you have filled in the API Request Key Form please have some patience and wait for our direct response to the contact you provided in it.
If you haven't filled in the form yet then please do so and we will reach out to you shortly.
Yes. Currently you can send 120 requests per every 20 seconds.
After September 12th the limits will be updated:
🔓 No API Key: 100 requests per minute.
🔑 With the API Key: 2 million requests per month.
Yes, same as for Hub API. When it comes to snapshot.js, refer to Utilsin Snapshot.js documentation.
Make sure to generate your API Key to get higher usage limits. One key can be used for all API services and limits are counted individually per service.
I tried to submit a proposal with
snapshot.js, but I get a “Wrong proposal format” error. What should I do?There is a high chance that something is missing in the proposal’s payload. Make sure you are following the proposal schema defined here → https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot.js/blob/master/src/schemas/proposal.json
I tried to submit a vote with
snapshot.js, but I get the “Wrong vote format” error. What should I do?Make sure that you’re following the vote schema defined here → https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot.js/blob/master/src/schemas/vote.json.
A common mistake is using a wrong type (string instead of object) or extending a limit of a value (i.e.
reason ).Follow our documentation to learn all the steps to add a new network to Snapshot: Add a new network
You can send a request to the node and try to fetch the genesis block:
$ curl -H "content-type: application/json" -X POST --data '{"id":0,"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBalance","params":["<CONTRACT_HASH>","0x1"]}' <RPC_URL>
If you get a correct response without any errors, the Node is a Full Archive.
You can browse through the existing staking strategies →https://snapshot.org/#/?type=strategies&q=stake.
If none of them work for you, have a look at the options below.
- In order to use the staking contract it has to have a
balanceOfmethod which allows reading the balance of the staked tokens. You can use thehttps://snapshot.org/#/strategy/erc20-balance-of strategy with it. - If your contract has a method getting the balance named differently, you can also use thehttps://snapshot.org/#/strategy/contract-call strategy.
Yes. If it’s not supported yet you can create a custom voting strategy to enable delegation on your network. You can see an example here →https://snapshot.org/#/strategy/orbs-network-delegation
If it doesn’t exist yet, you can create a new voting strategy. Have a look at our documentation to learn more: Create a voting strategy
Still can't find an answer? Have a look at our Github discussions or follow this question:I have an issue, where should I report it?
Last modified 7d ago