ENS DAO Security Council renewal blocked as founder wields 50% voting power

Nick Johnson, the founder and lead developer of ENS, just used about half of the protocol’s active voting power to stop an on-chain proposal to renew the ENS DAO Security Council, adding a new chapter to several weeks of a governance crisis that no one wants to see go any further.

The on-chain vote ended on June 30, 2026, after Johnson did not take part in the earlier off-chain Snapshot vote.

Lefteris Karapetsas, a longtime member of the Ethereum community, said the result was expected and called the DAO “dead.” He claimed that Johnson’s voting power protects a treasury worth about $500 million from outside oversight, according to a post on X.

Another proposal introduced the same day

Hours after the Security Council renewal failed, a draft for a new Security Council appeared on the ENS governance forum. The plan was written by katherine.eth, and suggested replacing the current council with eight members. It also proposed that canceling any timelocked proposal would need a 5 out of 8 supermajority, up from the current 4 out of 8, according to the ENS governance forum.

The official ENS DAO account on X confirmed the submission of the proposal, and said the new council would follow a public mandate. They also stated that nominations are open until July 3, and that there would also be a way to remove members who do not follow the rules.

The current Security Council has a unique power in DAO governance: it can cancel proposals even after they have passed a community vote and entered the timelock queue. While the new draft proposal suggests that this power should be used only to block “malicious, coercive, or exploitative governance attacks.” It also warns that the definition of such attacks has become increasingly unclear.

Treasury dynamics are worsening the conflict

The financial stakes are significant. According to DeFiLlama, the ENS DAO treasury has about $350 million in assets, or $88 million if you remove the ENS token itself. As of today, CoinMarketCap says the ENS token’s market cap is about $166 million, with the token trading at $4.07. This is more than a 95% drop from its peak of $85.69 in November 2021.

This gap, where treasury assets far exceed the circulating market cap, creates the incentive structure the Security Council was meant to address. In theory, a well-funded attacker could buy enough tokens on the open market to control governance votes and extract value from the treasury. This scenario is often referred to as an “RFV raid.”

Different opinions about the vote

AvsA, an active ENS community member, shared a different view on the governance forum. He said the earlier ENS Labs foundation proposal was not a governance attack and that blocking it with the Security Council would have been too much. Still, he warned that not renewing the Council creates a bigger risk.

“The DAO is a $130M treasury safeguarded by at best $20M worth of tokens,” AvsA wrote. He argued that if governance attacks are defined by “the legitimacy of the votes” instead of the proposal’s effect, it could let a wealthy buyer legally take over the protocol for profit.

New proposals despite internal conflict

The Security Council dispute is the second major governance clash at ENS in less than two weeks. On June 19, katherine.eth introduced a separate proposal to transfer operational control, grants, and treasury management to the ENS Foundation.

Some critics, including ENS constitution author Brantly Millegan, argued that this plan would concentrate power away from tokenholders.

Johnson supported that earlier proposal and intended to self-delegate his tokens in its favor, according to the same report.

Cryptopolitan previously reported that the restructuring was driven by delegate fatigue, limited accountability from grant recipients, and the DAO’s challenges in executing long-term capital strategy through token voting alone.

If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.