ENS Foundation has officially become an independent operational entity, receiving a grant of 1 million ENS tokens

August 11th. According to official sources, ENS token holders have approved the "ENS DAO New Era" proposal, and the related execution plan has been completed on-chain. The ENS Foundation has officially become an independent operating entity. The Foundation will establish a full-time executive director, dedicated staff, and a 5-person board of directors, responsible for representing ENS in ICANN, IETF, W3C, and other organizations and standard bodies, promoting the ".ens" top-level domain related affairs, and engaging in policy advocacy, intellectual property protection, personnel recruitment, ecosystem funding, and other offline operational work. ENS stated that with the Foundation's official operation, ENS Labs will be able to focus more on protocol and product development, including core infrastructure such as ENSv2.

Under the new governance structure, ENS DAO, ENS Foundation, and ENS Labs will form a tripartite system with clear division of responsibilities. The assets of the Endowment Fund, supported by .eth domain registration fees, remain unchanged, with transactions subject to a 9-day timelock. The ENS Security Council can veto any operations beyond the Foundation's authorized scope. The tokens held by ENS DAO account for 54.6% of the total ENS supply and are still controlled by the DAO and token holders, with one exception: a one-time transfer of 1 million ENS tokens to the Foundation to pay employee salaries according to a public compensation framework. The ENS Foundation and ENS Labs are separate legal and operational entities, where the Foundation does not own ENS Labs, and ENS Labs does not have governance rights over the Foundation; token holders can appoint or dismiss Foundation directors.

The inaugural 5-person board of directors of the ENS Foundation includes Executive Director Alexander Urbelis, ENS founder and ENS Labs CEO Nick Johnson, and 3 independent directors: A.Capital Ventures General Partner and ETHGlobal Co-founder Kartik Talwar, Prelude Co-founder Brett Sun, and Aragon CEO Anthony Leutenegger. ENS stated that existing stewards, grant programs, and other commitments will continue to be honored, and the Foundation will gradually take over funding programs, working groups, and other related affairs. In the future, ENS Labs will continue to be responsible for the core development of the ENS protocol, DAO for protocol governance and Foundation oversight, and the Foundation for carrying out offline organizational functions necessary to support protocol operations, collectively driving the long-term development of ENS.