Snapshot has two related meanings in crypto. In the general sense, a snapshot is a record of the state of a blockchain at a chosen moment, usually a specific block height, listing which addresses held which tokens. Projects use snapshots to decide who receives an airdrop, who gets new coins after a hard fork and how much voting power each holder has in a governance proposal.
In the second sense, Snapshot is the name of an off-chain voting platform, launched in 2020 by a team then working at Balancer Labs, that lets a DAO hold token-weighted votes without charging voters transaction fees. Snapshot became the default voting tool for a large share of DAOs, and its name comes from the first meaning, because each vote counts balances at a snapshot block.
Snapshots in plain terms
Imagine a club that decides to give every member a free ticket based on how many shares they held at midnight on 1 March. At midnight, the secretary photographs the share register. It does not matter who buys or sells shares the next day; the photograph decides who gets tickets. That photograph is a snapshot.
Snapshot the voting tool works like a ballot that uses the same photograph. Members sign a vote with their wallet, which costs nothing, and the tool counts each vote according to how many tokens the member held when the picture was taken.
How balance snapshots work
A project announces, in advance or afterwards, the block number at which balances will be recorded. Software then reads the chain at that block to produce a list of addresses and amounts, sometimes including tokens held in liquidity pools, staking contracts or exchanges that agree to take part. Common uses include:
- Airdrops. Rewarding past users or holders with new tokens based on their recorded activity or balance.
- Forks. When a chain splits, holders at the fork block usually hold coins on both chains, as happened when Bitcoin Cash split from Bitcoin in 2017.
- Governance. Fixing voting power at a past block stops people from borrowing or buying tokens just to vote and then selling them.
- Migrations. Moving balances to a new token contract or a new mainnet through a mainnet swap.
Announced snapshots can cause price swings, as traders buy before the snapshot to qualify and sell soon after. Some projects therefore take snapshots at an undisclosed block, or take several snapshots over a period and use the average or lowest balance, so that short-term buying brings little benefit. Producing a fair list is harder than it sounds: tokens held in lending markets, wrapped versions on other chains and balances kept by exchanges on behalf of customers all need special handling, and mistakes can leave genuine holders out or reward addresses that should not qualify.
The Snapshot voting platform
On Snapshot, each DAO creates a "space" and defines voting strategies, rules that say how voting power is calculated, for example one token one vote, delegated votes or more complex formulas. When a proposal is posted, a snapshot block is fixed. Voters sign messages with their wallet rather than sending transactions, so no gas fee is paid, and the votes and results are stored on decentralised storage such as the InterPlanetary File System for anyone to check.
Snapshot also supports delegation, letting holders assign their voting power to another address without moving tokens, and allows spaces to restrict who may create proposals. Its use grew rapidly during the DeFi boom of 2021, when many new protocols launched governance tokens and needed a quick, free way to consult holders before building more permanent systems.
Because voting happens off-chain, the result does not execute itself. A trusted group, often holders of a multi-sig wallet, must carry out the decision, or the DAO can link Snapshot to tools that execute approved results on-chain, with safeguards to resolve disputes. This makes Snapshot a form of off-chain governance, in contrast to fully on-chain governance, where votes are cast and executed by smart contracts.
Strengths and criticism
Snapshot made DAO voting cheap and easy, which supporters say broadened participation. Critics point to several weaknesses:
- Low turnout. Even free votes often attract only a small share of token holders, so a few large wallets can decide outcomes, and many proposals barely reach their quorum.
- Execution trust. Off-chain results rely on signers to act on them, which reintroduces a layer of trust.
- Token-weighted power. Voting by token balance favours whales, funds and exchanges holding customer tokens.
- Gaming. Users have split holdings across wallets or timed purchases around snapshots to maximise airdrops, prompting projects to add anti-abuse rules.
As of November 2026 Snapshot remained one of the most widely used DAO voting tools, while many large protocols combined it with on-chain voting for binding decisions.