Nick Johnson casts 80% of votes to block ENS Security Council

ENS co-founder Nick Johnson used about 3.26 million ENS tokens, roughly 80% of the votes cast so far, to vote against an onchain executable proposal that would have renewed the ENS DAO’s Security Council for a two-year term.

The renewal process involved an initial off-chain Snapshot vote followed by an onchain executable proposal. Johnson abstained in the Snapshot vote and explained he supported renewal in principle but not with the current slate of members. He wrote that he voted against the executable proposal because his concerns had not been addressed. The onchain measure, which would extend the council’s authority before its current term expires on July 24, 2026, shows about 82% of votes as “no” and is scheduled to close on July 5 at 8:59 PM.

Johnson’s voting weight represents roughly 80% of the ENS tokens cast so far in the executable vote and about half of the ENS tokens currently delegated to any delegate.

The Security Council is a four-of-eight multisig with the limited power to reverse or cancel proposals held in the DAO timelock when those proposals are judged malicious or in breach of the ENS constitution.

On the voting platform, Johnson wrote that some current council members had signaled they would use veto power against proposals they personally disagreed with. He added, “The security council must exist as a backstop against compromise and violations of the ENS constitution, not as political officers.”

Community responses were strong. A longtime contributor described the episode as a “moral and usage implosion of ENS” and warned of damage to Ethereum. A commentator wrote that “ENS DAO is dead,” while another observer called the situation a governance crisis and pointed to alternative naming services.

The onchain proposal would have rotated several current council members out, including lefteris.eth, reportedly due to inactivity within the DAO.

Earlier this month, ENS leadership circulated governance proposals. One temp-check proposal would shift day-to-day treasury management, endowment oversight and grant administration from the DAO to the ENS Foundation, a five-seat body that includes Johnson. A separate proposal would replace the current Security Council with an eight-member successor requiring a five-of-eight threshold to reverse DAO votes; feedback on that proposal is open through July 3 at 11:59 PM UTC. Johnson indicated he agreed with the proposed new mandate and charter.

ENS launched in 2017 as a decentralized naming system on Ethereum that lets users register human-readable names resolving to addresses, websites or other data. Earlier this year, ENS Labs canceled development of a custom Layer 2 namechain and said the planned ENSv2 protocol will deploy on the Ethereum mainnet.

The vote and the competing governance proposals have prompted debate within the ENS community about delegation, voting concentration and the balance of authority between the DAO and the foundation.