Blockchain protocols and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) argue that, as a rule, conducting activity on-chain is best. However, the vast majority of us are still voting off-chain. That’s right — we’re turning to Web2 single-operator-run votes to facilitate our permissionless happy place.
It feels frustrating. My experience at Starknet (STRK) is echoed across our space. I desperately wanted permissionless on-chain voting used for governance from the very first day. But it just hasn’t been possible.
DAO and protocol governance has required a painful tradeoff until now. Hold votes off-chain in favor of cost and inclusivity, or stick to your principles, go on-chain and watch the gas deter a broad swath from voting at all. Decentralization with a voters’ participation charge isn’t the future we envisioned.
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Voting is one of the most effective ways of allowing people to influence decision-making, but Web3 plumbing hasn’t yet been conducive to doing it as originally perceived, meaning on-chain. When votes are cast as transactions on the blockchain, associated gas fees skyrocket, shutting out people who are entitled to a voice, but can’t afford to have one. Imagine if there was a $10 pay-to-play charge for voting in any general election — turnout wouldn’t be so hot.
The easy option has been off-chain governance which is almost free and can be customized to meet specific needs, but also requires trusted third-parties to facilitate it. It’s a compromise decentralization pioneers are forced to make, and one that I reluctantly accepted at Starknet.
STRK holders are set to vote on a staking mechanism on Sept. 10. Source: Starknet
We will right this wrong on Sept. 10, when the next Starknet vote begins. Snapshot, the platform that facilitates the vast majority of DAO voting — off-chain until now — is opening a whole new world by delivering on-chain voting, made easy and free to users. (The vote itself will launch staking on Starknet.)
The new on-chain Snapshot X happens to be built on Starknet, though I’d be thrilled even if it were not. It’s the idea that matters, not the brand behind it.
To be sure, this is an incremental step forward. Blockchain doesn’t solve all problems immediately. For example, a small group of people can and will jam a proposal through, even if it’s largely deemed undesirable by the many. There will be activism regardless of the tech.
But on-chain voting is a key piece that will showcase the uniqueness and potential of blockchain governance. What is more, it answers the critics of crypto who mock tokens and say they have little intrinsic value.
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In off-chain voting, the operator allocates your voice a certain amount of weight based on how many tokens you hold (e.g. 100 tokens gives you 100 votes). On-chain voting is the ultimate in democracy. Each token automatically gives you a mandate by enshrining it in the protocol without the need for any intermediary. As a result, insiders and outsiders alike will see that tokens aren’t merely things to trade, but are at the center of Web3 democracy.
I care about on-chain voting for the purity of blockchain culture, and also because I think it matters to wider society. Call me a dreamer, but I remain a believer in the collective and think that blockchain pioneers can be shining examples for the world beyond Web3 to start doing things differently.
Blockchain can emerge as a useful tool for the real world. Ever receive a paper proxy in the mail ahead of a shareholder meeting — after the cut-off date to vote? It’s a common problem. Imagine how many more investors would participate, if there was a nearly free option that was verifiable and came with a user-friendly app on a smartphone.
That is something that blockchain can make happen right now. What scares people about electronic voting is the blackboxness of it all, where voters have no visibility into how their votes are recorded, counted and no physical record of their having cast a vote. But if there was a method that was both uncheatable and verifiable to the point where people would feel comfortable going to a digital office where votes were being made and counted at the same time, on-chain polling could be one of those revolutionary technologies that make it happen. And this is what blockchain is all about to me – giving people the peace-of-mind that things which matter are done within integrity.
Maybe, this is the seed that survives and brings about national on-chain voting for democracies everywhere. True, modern technology isn’t sufficient to deliver that anytime soon, but proof-of-humanity could change all that.
Before we get there, if we get there at all, it is imperative for leaders in blockchain to prove that our own governance systems align with what we preach. Consider this a call-to-action: Let’s make every token count, on-chain.
Eli Ben-Sasson is the CEO and co-founder of StarkWare. A former academic, he got into blockchain via theoretical computer science. He obtained a PhD in theoretical computer science from the Hebrew University in 2001. He is a co-inventor of the STARK, FRI and Zerocash protocols and a founding scientist of the Zcash Company. He has held research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and most recently was a professor of computer science at Technion in Israel.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.