Altcoins News

Story: ENS DAO Puts $65M Endowment Under Five-Seat Board in Major Governance Overhaul

By Dan Saada

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What the Foundation Controls — and What It Doesn't. Here's the part that matters most to tokenholders: the foundation won't touch protocol decisions.

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Budgets, Grants, and the ICANN Play. The DAO's operational wallet — around $16 million in ETH and stablecoins — keeps running under its…

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ENS DAO just rewired itself. The project has turned its foundation into a full-time operating body, complete with a professional staff, a five-seat board, and control over a $65…

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The Ethereum Name Service has registered millions of human-readable names that replace the long, unwieldy blockchain addresses most users can't memorize.

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The board itself has five seats. ENS founder Nick Johnson is on it, alongside independent directors Kartik Talwar, Brett Sun, and Anthony Leutenegger.

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On the treasury side, roughly 54.6 million ENS tokens remain under on-chain control. The Foundation Safe gets 1 million tokens set aside for employee compensation, subject to…

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The $65 million endowment, held in ETH and stablecoins, stays under board oversight with administrative control through approved signers.

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The DAO's operational wallet — around $16 million in ETH and stablecoins — keeps running under its existing framework. Active payment streams continue as before.

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More context: Ethereum Holders Tap ASDeFi for $7,000 Monthly Earnings

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Existing grants and service-provider agreements run to their natural end. Future grant activity shifts under the foundation's umbrella, folding in the Service Provider Program…

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The legal standing also opens a door that was previously shut: ICANN. The foundation wants recognition for ".

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In the U.S., the legal structure matters for a different reason. DAOs have had a rough time in American courts, basically because decentralized structures don't map cleanly onto…

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The foundation will also roll out an interim conflict-of-interest policy for directors, with a refined version due within 90 days.

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See also: Decta Taps OpenPayds MiCA-Licensed Rails to Run USDC Treasury Across 32 Markets

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Tokenholders keep the power to appoint and remove directors, which is probably the key check on the whole setup.

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