ENS co-founder Alex Van de Sande proposed on July 7 that the ENS DAO delegate 5 million ENS from its treasury to community participants, seeking to reduce the dominance of a single large holder in governance votes. The proposal is focused on voting rights, not ownership of the tokens themselves.
Delegated tokens would stay in the treasury
Van de Sande said the delegated ENS would remain owned by the DAO. Recipients would receive voting power only, with no ability to sell or transfer the tokens. The idea is to put dormant governance weight from the treasury into circulation through active participants, instead of leaving that influence unused while a few major delegates control decisions.
Based on the report’s estimate of roughly 40 million ENS in current total voting power, a 5 million ENS delegation would account for about 12.5%. That level would be large enough to offset the concentrated weight of one or two major holders.
Current ENS voting is described as highly concentrated
The report says the present ENS DAO structure has reached a point where one representative alone can satisfy quorum and execute any proposal. That delegate’s voting weight is said to exceed the combined voting power of the next 50 representatives. In practical terms, governance decisions are being shaped by a very small group.
This concentration sits at the center of the latest governance fight. The issue is not only that whales hold large token balances, but that the representative structure allows that concentration to dominate the process itself.
Debate follows earlier controversy over treasury and operations
The proposal arrives after earlier criticism of ENS Labs for suggesting that the DAO’s operating wallet, ENS token holdings, and capital allocation be moved under a five-member board. That plan drew accusations that insiders could capture control of the treasury.
Over the past year, ENS has also rolled out infrastructure changes, including a migration from Ethereum mainnet to an L2 network, integration of TLDs, and a layered registration system. Those upgrades raised expectations around governance efficiency while exposing the limits of a system where voting power is tightly concentrated.
A governance redesign built around delegated influence
The proposal would not redistribute token ownership or sell treasury assets. It would redirect voting influence by assigning treasury-held governance weight to active community members. If approved, the change would give ENS a new mechanism for balancing governance power without waiting for token holdings to disperse on their own.
The source also notes that ENS is not alone. Similar concentration issues have appeared in DAO governance at protocols such as MakerDAO and Aave, where early participants or large airdrop recipients retain outsized influence.