The Ethereum Name Service DAO executed a binding on-chain vote on October 25, 2026, approving ENSv2 activation with 1.69 million tokens cast from 62 wallets. Only one wallet voted against. Quorum was cleared by 69%. The timelock opens around October 27, triggering 15 contract calls in a single at...
"The landscape has changed between when we first decided to pursue an L2. Ethereum is scaling faster than almost anyone predicted two years ago; we've seen a 99% reduction in ENS registration gas costs over the past year." — Nick Johnson, Founder, ENS Labs
The Ethereum Name Service DAO executed a binding on-chain vote on October 25, 2026, approving ENSv2 activation with 1.69 million tokens cast from 62 wallets. Only one wallet voted against. Quorum was cleared by 69%. The timelock opens around October 27, triggering 15 contract calls in a single atomic transaction that will freeze all new .eth registrations on v1, remove every existing registrar controller, and hand ownership of the BaseRegistrar to a renew-only contract.
The migration affects 2.8 million registered .eth names and nearly 900,000 unique addresses. Annual fees for five-character-and-longer domains rise 60% — from $5 to $8 — while payment shifts from ETH to stablecoins (USDC or DAI). The ENS token traded at $5.60 with a $236.6 million market cap as of late October 2026, down approximately 5.5% in the 24 hours around the vote's close.
ENSv2 is a full-stack rewrite of the Ethereum Name Service protocol. The upgrade introduces hierarchical registries, where each name can provide its own registry implementation for subnames, giving name owners direct control over ownership and transfer rules. Registration becomes single-step — down from the current two-transaction commit-reveal process. Payments shift to stablecoins (USDC or DAI) from any EVM chain. Cross-chain resolution support extends to more than 60 blockchains, including Bitcoin and Solana.
The v2 contracts were deployed to mainnet on October 2, 2026, according to the ensdomains/bigname GitHub repository (PR #1163). The DAO proposal, submitted by nick.eth, opened for on-chain voting on October 7 and closed October 25 at 13:32 UTC. Execution follows after the timelock period expires around October 27.
The Universal Resolver — the smart contract that applications query to look up .eth names — will be redirected to a proxy managed by the ENS Security Committee, which will then switch resolution to the v2 system once migration is complete.
The proposal executes 15 calls in strict order from the DAO timelock. If any single call fails, none take effect. The sequence:
The interval between proposal execution and v2 registration opening is expected to be several hours. During this window, no new names can be registered on either v1 or v2. Renewals remain operational. All other name operations (transfers, record updates) continue uninterrupted.
ENSv2 was originally designed to launch on Namechain, a dedicated Layer 2 built specifically for the naming system. In February 2026, ENS Labs reversed course and announced ENSv2 would deploy exclusively on Ethereum L1.
The stated reason: Ethereum's own scaling improvements eliminated the cost advantage. The network's gas limit doubled from 30 million to 60 million via the Fusaka upgrade in 2025. According to ENS Labs, this produced a roughly 99% reduction in ENS registration gas costs, removing the primary economic justification for a separate L2.
The reversal is notable from an infrastructure-cost perspective. A dedicated L2 would have introduced its own sequencer, bridge, and data-availability requirements — each with associated economic extraction points. By staying on L1, ENS avoids creating a new value-extraction layer between users and the base protocol. Registration fees flow directly to the DAO treasury without intermediary infrastructure costs.
As Johnson told CoinDesk in February 2026, he expects the L2 space to contract: "This trajectory change... does mean that the L2 space is going to be a lot smaller than we thought it was going to be."
ENSv2 restructures the fee schedule. The changes, approved via EP 6.43 on Snapshot:
| Domain Length | v1 Annual Fee | v2 Annual Fee | Change | |---|---|---|---| | 5+ characters | $5 | $8 | +60% | | 4 characters | $160 | $160 | No change | | 3 characters | $640 | $640 | No change |
Prices remain denominated in USD but are now paid in USDC or DAI rather than ETH. This removes exchange-rate volatility from the fee calculation — under v1, users paying in ETH were exposed to ETH/USD price movements between the time they initiated registration and the time the transaction confirmed.
Multi-year registration discounts partially offset the increase. Users purchasing six or more years receive an approximately 44% reduction in annual costs, according to the ENS documentation. The grace period for expired domains shortens from 90 days to 28 days, which could increase churn if holders miss the tighter renewal window.
Some governance participants opposed the fee increase for longer domains. The opposition did not prevent passage but signals that the 60% increase on the most common domain tier — five characters and above account for the vast majority of registrations — will be felt by retail users.
Several risks accompany the transition:
Registration Gap: A known defect affects names registered through ENSv1 after the last pre-migration reservation batch and before the DAO removes v1 controllers. These names have no ENSv2 entry, which means their resolver and records may be missing from API responses during the transition period.
Single Key Dependency: A single outside key operated by Rhinestone controls the new account contracts used in v2. ENS Labs has stated plans to make the service immutable in Q4 2026 or Q1 2027. Until then, a single point of failure exists in the account-abstraction layer.
Security Committee Authority: Call 15 places the Universal Resolver under a proxy managed by the Security Committee rather than under direct DAO governance. This grants a smaller group temporary upgrade authority over the system's primary lookup mechanism during the migration period.
Shortened Grace Period: The move from 90 to 28 days gives existing domain holders less time to renew. Users accustomed to the v1 grace period may lose domains if they do not adjust to the new timeline.
The vote passed with 1.69 million ENS tokens from 62 wallets. The single opposing wallet underscores both the consensus among active delegates and the thin participation base. According to a Frontiers in Blockchain study published in August 2026, 97% of ENS token addresses control just 2.1% of voting power. The top 1% of holders dominate 62.4%.
ENS maintains approximately 142 active delegates who collectively represent 64% of voting power. The delegation system reduces concentration relative to raw token holdings — the voting-to-holding amplification ratio is 0.48x, meaning delegation disperses governance power compared to the holding baseline. However, the absolute concentration remains high. A February 2026 analysis found that low voter turnout and whale dominance are systemic across major DAOs, with average voter turnout below 10%.
The practical implication: a protocol serving 2.8 million registered names and 900,000 unique addresses made an irreversible infrastructure decision with 62 participating wallets. The outcome may have been correct, but the process reflects the broader DAO governance challenge of thin participation in high-stakes decisions.
ENS operates a relatively simple economic model: users pay annual fees denominated in USD, collected in stablecoins (v2) or ETH (v1), which flow to the DAO treasury. The DAO funds protocol development, grants, and delegate compensation.
The fee increase from $5 to $8 on five-character-plus domains — the bulk of registrations — represents a 60% revenue increase per name on that tier, assuming stable registration counts. With 2.8 million total registrations, the exact revenue impact depends on the distribution of name lengths and renewal rates, neither of which ENS Labs has disclosed in granular detail.
The shift to stablecoin payments aligns with a broader DeFi trend toward dollar-denominated revenue streams. It removes a hidden subsidy: under the v1 model, users who registered during ETH price dips effectively paid less in USD terms. Under v2, the protocol captures its target USD revenue regardless of ETH volatility.
The abandonment of Namechain eliminates what would have been an additional economic layer. Had ENS built a dedicated L2, sequencer revenue, bridge fees, and data availability costs would have redistributed value away from end users. By staying on L1, the protocol's economic model remains a direct fee-for-service arrangement between users and the DAO treasury.
ENSv2 is the most consequential upgrade to Ethereum's naming infrastructure since the original launch. The technical execution — a 15-call atomic transaction with all-or-nothing semantics — is ambitious. The economic restructuring — stablecoin fees, higher pricing, shorter grace periods — reflects a protocol prioritizing sustainable revenue over growth subsidies.
The governance dynamics warrant scrutiny. A 62-wallet vote on an irreversible protocol change is functional consensus among active delegates, but it is not broad participation. The concentration of voting power in the top 1% of holders is not unique to ENS, but the irreversible nature of this particular decision — permanently disabling v1 registrations — raises the stakes.
For the 2.8 million .eth name holders, the practical near-term impact is limited: existing names continue to resolve, renewals work, and the fee increase is modest in absolute terms. The risks are concentrated in the migration window (potential resolver gaps), the Rhinestone key dependency (single point of failure), and the shortened grace period (28 vs. 90 days). Whether ENSv2 delivers on its technical promises — single-step registration, cross-chain resolution, stablecoin payments — will become clear in the weeks following execution.