Christoph Jentzsch, a veteran Ethereum developer with no formal $ENS governance function, has proposed shutting down the $ENS DAO solely. The treasury could be higher dealt with if it have been within the palms of an out of doors steward, in keeping with Jentzsch.
That is the third competing concept for the way the $ENS must be run, with the 2 different concepts proposed by the $ENS Labs’ Chief Working Officer, Katherine Wu.
What’s Christoph Jentzsch proposing?
Ethereum Title Service governance reached a brand new turning level on July 1 because the governance drama has began to draw ideas even from folks with none official function in $ENS governance.
Someday after Nick Johnson, the co-founder of the $ENS DAO, used roughly half of the protocol’s energetic voting energy to block an on-chain vote that might have renewed the DAO’s Safety Council, Christoph Jentzsch, a well known Ethereum developer, proposed that the DAO be shut down solely, and its treasury given to an out of doors caretaker.
The DAO Safety Council is a bunch with the facility to cancel governance proposals even after they move neighborhood votes and enter the ready interval earlier than execution, often called a timelock.
Johnson defined that he had abstained from an earlier “comfortable” vote on the identical difficulty whereas saying he supported renewing the council, simply not with its present members. When the binding on-chain vote got here, he voted in opposition to it as a result of, in his phrases, none of his issues had been addressed.
Jentzsch spoke to Johnson instantly on X, explaining his concept of winding the DAO down over a set interval, stripping all administrative powers from its sensible contracts, and giving the remaining funds to an out of doors establishment, such because the Ethereum Basis or the newly fashioned Eth Labs.
Relating to the DAO’s charges and treasury belongings, Jentzsch urged to both burn the funds to cease folks from grabbing up unused domains, which is named squatting, or dropping registration charges to zero. Though he admitted that might make squatting worse.
A part of his ideas was to nominate a caretaker group to handle the belongings to assist $ENS develop.
Jentzsch estimated that the entire course of may take 6 to 18 months and requested Johnson whether or not $ENS v2, the following model of the protocol, may very well be completed in that point.
He later admitted that his plan had some “technical gaps” throughout his trade with Johnson, however mentioned the general concept was nonetheless price exploring.
One other neighborhood member, identified on-line as Ariutokintumi.eth, urged $ENS change to demand-based pricing for domains as a part of any modifications.
Is the $ENS DAO treasury in danger now?
Johnson’s vote in opposition to renewing the Safety Council has induced issues concerning the treasury being raided. Lefteris Karapetsas, a longtime Ethereum contributor and the founding father of the software Rotki, mentioned on X that the DAO was now “useless,” arguing that Johnson’s voting energy protects a treasury price round $500 million from any exterior checks.
One other delegate, who goes by Spengrah.eth, wrote on X that $ENS Labs appeared to be positioning itself as the primary controller of each each day operations and the Safety Council on the identical time, saying the DAO “seems prefer it has been captured,” with voting energy sitting in only some palms.
Knowledge from DeFiLlama reveals the $ENS treasury is price about $350 million in whole, or roughly $88 million when you take away the $ENS tokens the DAO itself holds. The $ENS token was buying and selling at simply over $4 as of this week, giving it a circulating market worth of round $166 million to $169 million. That worth is down greater than 95% from its all-time excessive of $85.69 in November 2021.
The hole between these figures signifies that somebody may theoretically purchase up $ENS tokens for lower than the treasury is price, take management of governance votes, after which push by means of proposals to empty the treasury to themselves — one thing insiders name an “RFV raid.”
Alongside Jentzsch’s concept, $ENS Labs’ Chief Working Officer, Katherine Wu has written a proposal for a brand new Safety Council. It was posted to the $ENS governance discussion board the identical day the renewal vote failed.
That plan would exchange the present council with eight new members that will likely be chosen within the open. It could additionally make canceling a locked proposal require 5 out of 8 votes as an alternative of the present 4 of 8. Johnson helps this plan and has even put himself ahead as a candidate for the brand new council. Nominations are set to shut by July 3.
Katherine Wu additionally shared a restructuring plan on June 19 that might hand day-to-day management, grants, and treasury administration to the $ENS Basis. Tokenholders would nonetheless get to vote on protocol modifications and will take away Basis administrators if wanted.
The $ENS neighborhood has days to select between the totally different plans on the desk for the protocol.
