Institutional clients of cryptocurrency custody firm Anchorage Digital can now voice their concerns about token proposals they hold without paying hefty gas fees.
According to an announcement on May 16, Anchorage will integrate Snapshot, an off-chain, gas-free multi-governance client, to allow its “token-holding community users” to use their tokens to vote on governance proposals without generating Any gas charges . It said all voting would take place under supervision in Anchorage, with no money flowing.
Snapshots are used by decentralized protocols like AAVE, Lido (LDO) and BitDAO. It records votes off-chain - meaning transactions are not publicly recorded on the blockchain. According to Anchorage, the advantage of this approach is "convenience": “This convenience trade-off comes in the form of on-chain guarantees; snapshot voting is free because votes are computed off-chain, so there is no need to pay gas. Responsibility for enforcing decisions is usually delegated to multi-signatures operated by the protocol team .”
Anchorage says it currently supports “more than 60 ERC-20 tokens” and plans to support all applicable future ERC-20 tokens. Anchorage announced in October that it had expanded into Asia and partnered with five new institutional partners, including Bitkub, DreamTrade and FBG Capital. Asian consumers have “enthusiastically adopted crypto,” the announcement said.
Snapshots have recently been used to collect votes from AAVE and LDO token holders on each of the latest upgrades or governance proposals to the protocol. It turns out that the voting system is also beneficial for AAVE users who mistakenly sent tokens to the wrong address.
In July 2022, LidoDAO, the governing body controlling Lido Finance, conducted a snapshot vote to send 1% of LDO's token supply to DragonFly Capital for $14.5 million, but was rejected by token holders.
