ENS tokenholders approved and executed on-chain the "Next Era of ENS DAO" proposal, formalizing the ENS Foundation as a legal operating entity after nearly a decade of the Ethereum naming protocol's development. The final structure preserves the DAO's control over about 54.6 million ENS tokens, or 54.6% of total supply, and keeps the DAO's roughly $16 million operating wallet under existing control, while giving the foundation management of the roughly $65 million endowment subject to a nine-day timelock, Security Council veto powers, published budgets, annual audits and quarterly grant reporting. The approved version was narrower than the June draft that triggered a sharp governance backlash. A one-time transfer of 1 million ENS tokens will go to the foundation for future employee compensation, but those tokens cannot be voted, delegated, lent or pledged before they are granted. The foundation is intended to handle off-chain responsibilities the DAO cannot easily perform without legal personality, including engagement with bodies such as ICANN, IETF and W3C, pursuit of formal recognition for the .ens top-level domain, trademark enforcement and action against phishing impersonators. ENS Labs remains focused on product and engineering work including ENSv2. Alexander Urbelis will serve as executive director and board member alongside ENS founder Nick Johnson and three independent directors: Kartik Talwar, Brett Sun and Anthony Leutenegger. Independent directors will receive 40,000 USDC a year if they accept payment, with conflict-of-interest rules requiring independent board approval for ENS Labs-related funding and automatic recusal by the founder seat in such votes. The proposal emerged from a wider debate over the limits of token-weighted governance, with critics including Lefteris Karapetsas arguing the original plan ceded too much control, while supporters said the new model lets tokenholders keep protocol neutrality and director removal powers while shifting day-to-day operations to a legally recognized entity.