On-chain vs off-chain (Snapshot)
On-chain voting is expensive (every vote is a transaction), so most DAOs use — an off-chain tool that records token balances at a fixed block height and lets holders vote gaslessly. Snapshot votes are signaling: humans or a multi-sig then execute the winning proposal. This split means “on-chain DAO” often really means “off-chain-signal + multi-sig-execution.” Optimism, Aragon, and others are pushing toward fully on-chain execution (e.g. Governor contracts that auto-execute passed proposals).
Off-chain signal, or on-chain execution
Treasuries: the vault everyone wants to crack
A DAO treasury can hold hundreds of millions of dollars and is controlled by a vote. That makes it a high-value target. The biggest risks are: (1) capture (an attacker accumulates enough voting power to drain it legally), (2) mismanagement (the DAO holds mostly its own illiquid token, so a price crash guts real value), and (3) social engineering (a proposal that looks benign but contains a hidden drain).