Ethereum Name Service goes fully decentralized as DAO takes control

Journalist

Posted: December 17, 2023

• ENS DAO now controls the Ethereum Name Service.
• The last month has seen a decline in name registrations on the protocol.

Ethereum Name Service [ENS] has achieved complete decentralization, with control now firmly in the hands of its token-holding community. This was confirmed in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter) by ENS founder Nick Johnson.

This move follows a proposal that was unanimously voted in favor of, which sought the transferring ownership of the ENS root key from the multisig system to the ENS DAO. 

Sergey Nazarov from Chainlink, Dan Finlay from Metamask, Taylor Monahan from MyCrypto, Aron Fischer from Colony, Jason Carver, and Martin Swende from the Ethereum Foundation, along with Johnson and others, have all managed the ENS’ multisig contract in the past.

According to the proposal, apart from having control of the protocol’s root key, the ENS DAO also has control over creating and managing top-level domains (TLDs). While the “.eth” TLD is set and cannot be changed, the DAO can generate and oversee the creation of other TLDs.

Also, the body of token holders has been granted the power to update and reverse resolutions. Additionally, in collaboration with the Labs team, the DAO will explore and potentially implement primary domain names on Layer 2 solutions (L2s). 

Decline in .eth name registrations since October

In October, the protocol recorded its highest monthly count of ENS name registrations since the year began. According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, .eth name registrations totaled 56,869 during that 31-day period.

However, this declined in November, as only 20,877 name registrations were made. This represented a 63% decline from the year-to-date high.  So far this month, ENS has recorded 7,204 name registrations. 

Source: Dune Analytics

As name registrations surged in October, the monthly count of new addresses created on the ENS network also rallied.

Information from the same data provider showed that the protocol witnessed the creation of 49,000 new addresses in October. This also declined in November and has fallen further by 96% this month.

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Source: Dune Analytics

Regarding monthly revenue made from new name registrations and renewals, this has trailed downwards since August. 

Monthly revenue from new registrations fell by 64% between August and November. So far this month, revenue made from the same has totaled $349,000.