Ethereum Name Service (ENS) tokenholders have overwhelmingly ratified the "Next Era of ENS DAO" proposal, executing it onchain on August 11 to stand up a fully operational ENS Foundation with a paid executive director, dedicated staff, and a five-member board. The governance transformation gives the naming protocol its first legal entity capable of representing ENS in venues a DAO cannot—including ICANN, IETF, W3C standards bodies, regulators, registrars, and courts—while token voters continue to control the protocol itself.
New organizational structure splits responsibilities. ENS Labs will refocus on engineering, including the upcoming ENSv2 upgrade, while the Foundation handles off-chain policy, brand protection, and operational work. The Foundation gains administrative control over an approximately $65 million ENS Endowment funded by .eth registration fees, and will steward protocol revenue. A one-time transfer of 1 million ENS tokens from the DAO will cover employee compensation. However, the DAO retains control of its 54.6% of total ENS supply, and tokenholders can appoint or remove Foundation directors.
Checks and balances. All endowment transactions run through a nine-day timelock, during which the ENS Security Council can cancel any transaction that falls outside the Foundation’s mandate. The Foundation must spend against board-ratified budgets and report through annual audited financials and quarterly grant updates.
Board composition and terms. The inaugural board includes Alexander Urbelis (executive director, former CISO of ENS Labs and the NFL), ENS founder Nick Johnson (Founder seat), and independent directors Kartik Talwar (A.Capital Ventures, ETHGlobal), Brett Sun (co-founder of Prelude), and Anthony Leutenegger (CEO of Aragon). Independent directors serve two-year renewable terms.
The launch follows a June governance scuffle when Nick Johnson self-delegated roughly 3.26 million ENS tokens to block a Security Council renewal, drawing criticism as a "governance attack." A new eight-member Security Council with a stricter 5-of-8 multisig was later approved. The Foundation is legally separate from ENS Labs, which holds no governance rights over it.
ENS currently trades around $4.12, down more than 95% from its November 2021 peak of $85.69.
