ENS DAO has approved and executed a governance proposal that turns the ENS Foundation into a full-time operating body with a five-seat board, a professional staff, and control over a roughly $65 million endowment.
Summary
- ENS said the “Next Era of ENS DAO” proposal has completed on-chain execution after receiving tokenholder approval.
- Five voting directors will oversee the foundation, including three independent members.
- A one-time transfer of 1 million ENS tokens will fund employee compensation under restricted terms.
- ENS tokenholders retain control over protocol upgrades, fees, DAO-held tokens, and board appointments.
ENS Foundation takes over daily operations
According to an official ENS announcement, the approved structure gives the foundation the staff and legal standing needed to handle work that cannot be managed easily through on-chain votes alone.
ENS has operated for almost a decade as a naming system built on Ethereum. Its domains replace long blockchain addresses with names such as “alice.eth,” while also supporting website records, profiles, and other identity data.
Millions of ENS names have been registered, and the protocol has gained support from wallets, applications, and Layer 2 networks. However, the DAO itself is not a legal entity, leaving it unable to sign many institutional agreements, employ a permanent team, hold intellectual property directly, or represent the protocol in formal policy talks.
Under the executed proposal, the ENS Foundation becomes the legal and operating body for those functions. A full-time executive director will lead daily operations, manage staff, and oversee the grants program within budgets approved by the board.
Alexander Urbelis will serve as executive director and hold one voting board seat. ENS founder Nick Johnson will occupy a second seat, while Kartik Talwar, Brett Sun, and Anthony Leutenegger will serve as independent directors.
Independent directors will receive 40,000 USDC per year and serve two-year terms that the DAO may renew. If a director declines the payment, the funds will go to a nonprofit or public-good project of that person’s choice, according to the proposal.
Tokenholders also retain the power to appoint and remove directors. The removal process includes a written petition, supporting evidence, a response period for the board, and a 30-day period between the petition and the vote.
ENS DAO keeps control of the protocol and its tokens
The new setup separates operational work from decisions affecting the ENS protocol. The proposal states that smart contract upgrades, registration prices, fee structures, constitutional changes, the root key, and registry controls will remain with ENS tokenholders.
“Protocol control remains exclusively with ENS tokenholders,” the proposal states.
ENS Labs will continue operating as a separate Singapore-based entity with its own management and board. The foundation will hold ENS trademarks, brand assets, and other intellectual property, then license the relevant rights to ENS Labs while funding its work through the existing grant relationship.
Treasury safeguards were also added after delegates raised concerns during discussions that began in June. The DAO’s approximately 54.6 million ENS tokens remain under the same on-chain controls, and the proposal does not grant the foundation general authority over them.
One exception allows 1 million ENS tokens to move to the Foundation Safe for future employee compensation. Any grants from that pool must use multiyear vesting, while compensation for a director or the executive director requires approval from independent board members.
Until grants are issued, the foundation cannot vote, delegate, lend, or pledge the transferred tokens. It also cannot transfer them to ENS Labs or use them to pay ENS Labs staff. Unused tokens must return to the DAO if the foundation closes or if tokenholders approve a recall.
ENS has previously used outside organizations to manage part of its treasury. In November 2022, crypto.news reported its selection of Karpatkey to manage an endowment initially valued at about $52 million.
Nine-day timelock protects ENS endowment
Administrative control of the Endowment Safe, holding approximately $65 million in ETH and stablecoins as of July, now sits with the foundation board through approved signers. The assets have not moved to a new address, and the change does not give any director, employee, or private party beneficial ownership of the funds.
Endowment transactions will pass through a nine-day timelock by default. During that period, the ENS Security Council can cancel a transaction if it is unauthorized, incorrect, malicious, or outside the foundation’s approved mandate.
The proposal uses an OpenZeppelin Timelock Controller and a Blockful Security Council contract. Existing investment permissions granted to the endowment manager remain unchanged.
Meanwhile, the DAO’s operational wallet stays under its existing structure. The wallet held about $16 million in ETH and stablecoins as of July, while active payment streams continue drawing from it under their current terms.
Before receiving regular operating funds, the executive director must submit a projected budget to the board and publish a high-level version on the ENS governance forum. Transfers to cover setup costs cannot exceed $500,000 before that disclosure, and the first annual budget is due within 60 days of the proposal’s adoption.
Current grants, service-provider commitments, and active payment streams will continue until their scheduled end. Future grant work will move under the foundation, including the Service Provider Program, while existing reporting duties for recipients remain in place.
ENS Foundation will represent .ens in standards talks
Legal standing also allows the foundation to speak for ENS before internet standards bodies and government institutions. Its mandate includes participation in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the World Wide Web Consortium.
At ICANN, the foundation plans to pursue formal recognition and stewardship of “.ens” as a top-level domain. The work could help determine how blockchain-based names interact with the conventional Domain Name System used by browsers, websites, and email services.
Other Web3 naming providers have already sought a place in the ICANN system. In June 2024, crypto.news covered a partnership between Unstoppable Domains and Blockchain.com to seek approval for the “.blockchain” top-level domain. The report also noted that ENS had integrated “.box,” an ICANN-recognized domain compatible with standard browsers and email systems.
ENS has also worked directly with traditional domain companies. A February 2024 report on its partnership with GoDaddy said users could connect conventional internet domains to ENS-compatible wallet addresses without paying an additional fee.
For U.S. users, the foundation’s legal and brand-enforcement work carries practical relevance because naming disputes and impersonation cases can enter American courts. In September 2022, an Arizona federal court granted ENS an injunction involving the eth.link gateway domain after a dispute over its sale.
Formal recognition for DAOs remains limited in the United States. Wyoming has created legal structures for decentralized organizations, but an on-chain vote alone does not generally give a DAO the same ability as a registered entity to hire employees, hold trademarks, sign contracts, or appear in legal proceedings.
The foundation will adopt an interim conflict-of-interest policy covering its directors and executive director. Disclosures and recusals must be recorded publicly, ENS Labs funding requires support from a majority of eligible independent directors, and a refined policy must be presented for board approval within 90 days.
