Solo Voting vs. Voting Pools
When you decide to become a voter, your first choice is whether to vote solo or join a voting pool. You can move between the two at any time, but it is important to understand the differences.
Before comparing solo and pool voting, let's review how voting works today.
Current Voting Situation
A voting cycle in the UMA Oracle has two phases: commit and reveal. Each phase lasts 24 hours, with commit first and reveal second.
In the commit phase, voters encrypt and submit their votes.
In the reveal phase, voters decrypt their votes and publish them.
Currently, UMA stakers are expected to participate in every cycle, which means voting every day. Each cycle usually includes at least four disputes, and sometimes more than ten. Missing votes results in a 0.1% slash of your stake for each missed vote, which far outweighs the rewards.
Solo Voting
Solo voting means casting your own votes in every cycle. You are responsible for both the commit and reveal transactions, making sure you never miss a deadline. With disputes appearing nearly every day, solo voters must follow conversations in the UMA Discord, review arguments, and make their own judgment in every case.
The main benefit is control: you decide how to vote in every dispute. The trade-offs are significant: daily research and monitoring, the risk of slashing if you miss a cycle, and paying gas fees for each transaction (which may be reimbursed).
Voting Pools
Voting pools allow you to delegate your voting rights to another wallet controlled by a delegate or group of delegates. They handle both commit and reveal transactions on your behalf, and they do the research needed to cast votes in each cycle. Pools differ in their approach, accuracy, and fee structure, so choosing a delegate matters.
Delegation does not give the pool custody of your UMA. They cannot withdraw your tokens, but they can commit votes, reveal votes, and restake rewards for you. Joining a pool is flexible: you can delegate or withdraw your delegation at any time, though some pools require approval before accepting new delegators.
What is Vote Delegation?
Vote delegation means assigning your voting rights from one wallet (the delegator) to another (the delegate). A common setup is assigning rights from a cold wallet that holds your staked UMA to a hot wallet that handles voting. This allows you to keep custody of your tokens in secure storage while still participating in every voting cycle.
The delegate can override the delegator's votes if they disagree, but they cannot move or withdraw the underlying stake.
Voter Breakdown
As of September 2025, there are about 350 active voters in the UMA Oracle. Of these, roughly 280 addresses (85%) vote solo, while 52 addresses (15%) participate through voting pools.
The largest solo voters include borntoolate.eth (5.61 million UMA), the Across DAO Voting Committee (2.46 million UMA), Kevin Chan (1.41 million UMA), and members of the Risk Labs team (variable amounts). The largest single voter in a voting pool holds 184,000 UMA, which on its own would rank around #27 among all stakers. Combined across all pools, delegators account for about 516,000 UMA, giving them the equivalent of rank #11 in total voting power.
Summary
Solo voting gives you complete control but requires daily onchain activity, close attention to disputes in Discord, and covering gas fees for every transaction. Voting pools reduce workload and the risk of slashing, but require trusting your delegate’s judgment and sometimes paying fees. Delegation is the mechanism that enables pools, letting stakers separate token custody from voting activity.
Coming Up
Next, we will take a look at the largest voting pool: UMA.rocks.
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