How to Run an On-Chain DAO Vote on Solana. SolCraft Governance Guide

On-chain governance lets your token holders vote on proposals directly from their wallet - no Discord polls, no centralized admin, no way to fake results. SolCraft's voting tool costs $5 and takes under 60 seconds to set up.

Why On-Chain Voting?

Most crypto projects run governance via Twitter polls or Discord reactions - both are easily manipulated, have no Sybil resistance, and leave no verifiable record. On-chain voting ties each vote to a wallet's token balance. The results are public, permanent, and tamper-proof.

Token-weighted voting means large holders have more influence - which aligns incentives with skin in the game. One token = one vote (or you can use quadratic weighting in custom implementations).

How to Create a Vote

1. Go to solcraft.app/vote and connect your wallet
2. Enter your token mint address, this defines who can vote (holders of that token)
3. Write your proposal title and description - be specific about what you are asking
4. Add voting options (minimum 2, up to 6)
5. Set start and end time for the voting window
6. Pay $5 in SOL, the proposal is published on-chain

How Voting Works

Once your proposal is live, token holders can visit the proposal URL and vote with their wallet. Each vote is weighted by their token balance at vote time. Results update in real-time and are visible to anyone - no login required to view results.

Votes are recorded on-chain via the SolCraft voting program. The winning option is determined by total token weight at the end of the voting window.

Good Governance Practices

• Give at least 48-72 hours for voting - not everyone checks daily
• Announce the vote on all community channels before it starts
• Write clear, unambiguous options - avoid leading language
• Set a minimum participation threshold before acting on results
• Always honour the result publicly - governance legitimacy depends on trust

Use Cases