ENS DAO Approves Foundation Overhaul for Legal Standing

The Ethereum Name Service community has approved a major governance proposal to transform its foundation into a formal operating organization, a move designed to give the decentralized naming protocol the legal standing to engage with traditional internet governance bodies and protect its intellectual property. The "Next Era of ENS DAO" proposal was executed onchain on August 11, 2026, after receiving approximately 70% support from tokenholders.

Under the approved plan, the ENS Foundation will become a fully structured entity with a full-time executive director, dedicated staff, and a five-member board. The foundation will gain administrative control over an endowment valued at approximately $65 million, funded by revenue from .eth name registrations. This restructuring aims to provide the organization with the operational capacity to represent the protocol in venues where a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, lacks legal standing.

"A DAO, on its own, does not have the legal and operational capacity to act in many of the venues where that infrastructure now needs representation," the foundation stated in a blog post following the vote. The new structure allows the...