Composable Voting Power: Off-Chain Data Meets On-Chain Execution
New York, NY — March 11th, 2026
Agora introduces Merkle proof-based voting: enabling off-chain identity and off-chain voting power for on-chain execution.
Today at Agora, we are announcing a new primitive for the OODAO project: Merkle tree-based snapshot voting for on-chain execution. This allows DAOs to publish voting power and identities from disparate protocol contracts or off-chain systems, such as staking pools or application publishers. Rather than relying on a token's IVotes interface, this new model allows us to inject provable voting power into the Agora Governor.
What is OODAO
OODAO is a protocol that enables communities to run on- and off-chain proposals. It's declarative nature is lighter and less opinionated than other systems, making it great for supporting DAOs that want flexibility like those using the DUNA framework in the US. However, until today, it couldn't touch on-chain execution.
With the new Merkle-based voting power primitives, DAOs using OODAO, looking to move certain actions and decisions on-chain can use this new voting power module with the Agora Governor contract to seed voting power from disparate sources of identity or voting weight.
How it works
A Merkle tree of all relevant accounts and their voting power is produced, derived from any external source of truth. This can include a token balance on another chain, an NFT, a staking pool position, a REST endpoint, a trusted CSV, or any combination of the above. The resulting Merkle root is then published on-chain at a regular interval.
The Governor reads this root and, depending on its freshness, allows users to vote using that weight after providing a Merkle proof. Our software generates these proofs for the user, allowing them to verify their weights before voting on proposals. Additionally, these snapshots can be challenged by operators, community members, or even a DUNA admin before on-chain voting starts. This gives participants visibility into the calculations and ensures the process remains as transparent and trustworthy as possible.
Another major benefit is that this solution integrates with many of the existing modules written for consensus mechanisms used by DAOs today, such as Approval Voting or Optimistic Voting. These modules can be combined to support a new flow where administrators announce a Merkle root at the start of a proposal.
Our backend service generates these trees and supplies them to the Governor automatically, but can also be triggered manually if desired. Once the transaction has settled, voting can begin!
What’s next?
As we continue to develop new and exciting features leveraging this capability, we are looking for feedback from the community about how we can improve the tooling around coalescing voting power. Check out our github (https://github.com/voteagora), if you’d like to learn more and contribute!