Source publication: August 12, 2026, at 19:55 (UTC+8). Based on reporting by Eric, Foresight News, published by PANews.
ENS DAO approved and executed its “Next Era of ENS DAO” proposal on August 11, Beijing time, according to the report. The restructuring assigns operational responsibilities to the ENS Foundation while retaining substantial assets and oversight powers under token-holder governance.
The central question is not simply whether ENS becomes more or less decentralized. It is which responsibilities token voting should retain—and which can be delegated to a legally constituted organization with budgets, reporting obligations and removal procedures.
From a contested proposal to a narrower mandate
The process began on June 19, 2026, when ENS Foundation director Katherine Wu published a governance proposal to place day-to-day operations, grant administration and long-term financial strategy with an operationally empowered foundation.
Opposition was substantial. Rotki founder Lefteris Karapetsas argued on X that the proposal amounted to the DAO dissolving itself and handing a treasury worth nearly $500 million to the foundation. He also criticized founder Nick Johnson over what Karapetsas described as Johnson delegating half the voting power to himself. These were criticisms of the proposal, not descriptions of the final asset-transfer arrangements.
The report also describes a researcher at L2BEAT building an alternative naming system intended to have no owner and no mechanism for an operator-led rug pull. Wu subsequently published a lengthy clarification with comments disabled, drawing further criticism.
Johnson’s response focused on the limitations of the existing model: in his account, the DAO concentrated largely on spending treasury funds, while low delegation demonstrated the difficulty of maintaining DAO security through token voting. The report places that argument alongside broader concerns about voter fatigue, weak accountability for grant recipients and coordination costs.
The adopted proposal materially narrowed the foundation’s authority compared with the June draft.
What remains under DAO control
The report identifies three distinct asset arrangements rather than a wholesale treasury handover.
- ENS tokens: Approximately 54.6 million ENS, equivalent to 54.6% of total supply, remain under on-chain token-holder control, subject to a one-time transfer of 1 million ENS for future foundation employee compensation. Before those compensation tokens are granted, they cannot be used to vote, delegated, lent out or staked.
- Operating wallet: Approximately $16 million in ETH and stablecoins remains under DAO control. The earlier proposal to delegate this wallet to the foundation was removed.
- Endowment: Approximately $65 million comes under foundation board management, with each transaction subject to a nine-day timelock. During that interval, a security council can veto transactions that exceed the foundation’s authority.
The endowment mandate also includes spending constraints. Before publishing its first annual budget, the foundation may withdraw no more than $500,000 for setup expenses. Thereafter, annual spending is capped by the published budget, with annual audits and quarterly grant reports required.
Token holders retain the authority to appoint and remove directors. The removal procedure requires an evidence-backed petition, an opportunity for the board to respond and a 30-day interval between petition and vote. A director facing removal may publish a written defense.
These arrangements divide operational authority from ultimate governance oversight. They do not eliminate delegated discretion: the board still receives administrative control over a substantial endowment.
Why a foundation rather than ENS Labs?
The report’s rationale is that ENS needs representation in institutions whose processes do not run on-chain. It identifies ICANN, IETF and W3C as relevant venues, alongside work such as seeking formal recognition for a “.ens” top-level domain and pursuing trademark enforcement against phishing sites impersonating ENS.
In the source’s account, the DAO’s lack of legal personality prevents it from directly signing agreements or employing full-time staff for those functions. Some responsibilities had instead fallen to ENS Labs, described as a Singapore-based engineering company rather than the protocol’s institutional representative.
The foundation is intended to take on that organizational role, allowing Labs to focus on product development and engineering. This is a proposed division of responsibilities—not evidence that external recognition or enforcement outcomes have already been secured.
Board composition and conflicts of interest
The foundation’s board has five seats:
- Alexander Urbelis, executive director: Also ENS Labs’ general counsel and chief information security officer; the report says he previously served as the NFL’s CISO.
- Nick Johnson, founder seat.
- Kartik Talwar, independent director: A.Capital partner and ETHGlobal co-founder.
- Brett Sun, independent director: Prelude co-founder.
- Anthony Leutenegger, independent director: Aragon CEO.
Independent directors receive annual compensation of 40,000 USDC. If they decline it, the amount is donated to a charitable project they designate.
For decisions involving grants to ENS Labs, a majority of independent directors must approve, and the founder seat is automatically recused. That requirement addresses a specific conflict inherent in a structure where the protocol’s founder and a senior Labs executive also hold foundation board seats.
The engineering context: ENSv2 without Namechain
The restructuring also separates institutional work from ENS Labs’ technical roadmap. According to the report, in February 2026 Labs abandoned plans for its own L2 network, Namechain, and chose to deploy ENSv2 directly on Ethereum mainnet.
The stated reason was that Ethereum’s scaling improvements had reduced registration gas costs by approximately 99%. The supplied article does not provide the measurement period or methodology behind that figure, so it should be treated as the reported rationale rather than an independently established benchmark.
What the safeguards do—and do not—establish
The final arrangement delegates operations without transferring all treasury assets or removing token-holder oversight. The nine-day timelock, security-council veto, public budget, audits, grant reporting and director-removal process create several checks on foundation authority.
Their practical effectiveness remained untested in the reporting. A timelock creates an intervention window, but the report does not establish how oversight will perform in practice. Budget and reporting requirements make conduct reviewable; they do not by themselves demonstrate spending quality or successful institutional representation.
The source identifies the first budget, initial grants and participation in ICANN meetings as early tests. The governance experiment is therefore best understood as a change in where execution happens: a professional legal entity handles operations, while token holders retain substantial assets and constitutional oversight. Whether that division improves execution without weakening credible neutrality remains the unresolved question.