ENS Foundation takes control of $65 million endowment after tokenholder vote

Ethereum Name Service tokenholders have approved a major governance proposal, transferring administrative control of a $65 million endowment to a newly structured, Cayman Islands-based ENS Foundation. Led by Executive Director Alexander Urbelis, the Foundation will manage off-chain operations, brand assets, and policy. While the vote passed with 70% support, critics like co-founder Alex Van de Sande opposed the move, warning that the executable code removes the DAO from the control chain and lacks on-chain enforcement for written budget caps.

ENS Foundation governance restructuring

• ▪The restructured ENS Foundation will handle off-chain policy, brand protection, intellectual property, and relationships with organizations like ICANN, while ENS Labs continues to focus on core protocol development.
• ▪Alexander Urbelis will serve as the inaugural Executive Director of the ENS Foundation, with ENS founder Nick Johnson and independent members Kartik Talwar, Brett Sun, and Anthony Leutenegger joining the board.
• ▪Ethereum Name Service tokenholders voted on August 11, 2026 to restructure the ENS Foundation into a fully operational organization with a full-time Executive Director, dedicated staff, and a five-member board.

Endowment control transfer mechanism

• ▪The approved proposal hands administrative control of the ENS Endowment, which held approximately $65 million in ETH and stablecoins as of July 2026, to the ENS Foundation.
• ▪The ENS DAO retains direct control over approximately 54.6 million ENS tokens, representing the protocol's core treasury and governance authority.
• ▪The new endowment structure includes a nine-day timelock on all transactions, during which the ENS Security Council retains the authority to cancel any queued action.

Tokenholder vote results

• ▪Fire Eyes DAO cast the largest bloc of votes against the proposal at 154,548 votes, followed by ENS co-founder Alex Van de Sande with 130,335 votes and brantly.eth with 93,835 votes.
• ▪The governance proposal passed on August 11, 2026 with 1,269,420 ENS tokens voting in favor and 480,690 ENS tokens voting against, clearing the 1 million-token quorum.

Opposition from co-founder

• ▪ENS co-founder Alex Van de Sande voted against the proposal, arguing that the executable code removes the ENS DAO from the endowment's control chain.
• ▪Alex Van de Sande requested that the ENS DAO's operational wallet be granted a proposer role on the new timelock, but delegate gregskril rejected the request.

Foundation budget framework

• ▪Independent ENS Foundation board members will receive an annual compensation of 40,000 USDC for two-year terms.
• ▪The ENS Foundation receives a one-time transfer of 1 million ENS tokens, worth approximately $4.2 million, earmarked exclusively for employee compensation under a multi-year vesting framework.
• ▪Transfers from the endowment to the ENS Foundation are capped at $500,000 for standup costs until the Executive Director publishes a projected budget, with the first annual budget due within 60 days.

Technical implementation concerns

• ▪Alex Van de Sande and governance security firm Blockful flagged that the executable code swapped the owner of the Endowment Safe to an undocumented destination address not listed in the original proposal text.
• ▪Alex Van de Sande stated that the Security Council's transaction cancellation role expires on August 7, 2028, after which the veto can only be reinstated if the ENS Foundation itself queues the grant.
• ▪Alex Van de Sande and Blockful noted that the proposal's spending caps, budget bounds, and conflict-of-interest recusals exist only in prose and are not enforced by the executable code.