When Brantly was cancelled over 4 years ago, anyone else in his shoes would have stopped working on ENS on the spot.
Instead he decided to continue to work on improving ENS and he continued to make a huge impact on ENS and the Ethereum ecosystem.
If that situation was not enough to make Brantly quit, the fact that he's moving on from ENS now really shows how dire the situation is this time around.
Thank you @BrantlyMillegan and the rest of your team for your work over the years, I do hope to see you all continue to build other projects in the space 🫡
You say the DAO has wasted money and needs better governance over the money. *Everyone actually agrees with this.* The DAO has already cut its 3 Working Groups down to 1. SPP has a budget % cap and is using a different mechanism for picking projects to fund this year.
Then there's the elephant in the room: Labs gets about 2/3rds of the current spend. Labs doubled its budget 1.5 yr ago to do Namechain, didn't deliver (even ENSv2 hasn't shipped amazingly), and hasn't cut your funding to reflect that.
And then there's the Foundation board proposal. There is *consensus* around expanding the Foundation and putting them in charge of budgeting. This has been talked about extensively in the last 7-8 months. And everyone - Labs and non-Labs people - says they think the board should be independent and hold accountable any organization that receives money.
Months ago Katherine first proposed a Board that would have 2 Labs people, 3 "independent" people *chosen exclusively by her*. It would set budgets that the DAO would approve each year (treasury staying with the DAO). I and many others said this board certainly doesn't appear independent, and legitimacy matters. We said: how about Nick gets a permanent seat (respecting his position as the creator), and the other 4 people are chosen by the DAO in an open process. Katherine can still propose her people, but other people can too. It would give legitimacy to the process. This was months ago.
Months go by, nothing from Katherine. Then suddenly without warning she posts her current proposal: Still a board entirely chosen by her, and now the treasury actually goes to them (that's new!), and Nick is delegating 3m tokens to force it through with no discussion whatsoever. Whoa!
In other words, Nick is going to unilaterally vote to give the treasury to an organization Labs controls while still falsely claiming the board is independent. Sure seems like the last 6 months of good faith discussions about and independent board and accountability were in bad faith and a waste of time.
So your whole framing of "we just want better governance, DAOs don't work, why is everyone against that" is simply false.
Not to mention: All ENS metrics have been down only since 2022. ENS didn't even get a significant bump in 2025. Annual revenue is currently about half of what even just Labs gets. ENS needs radical leadership change to get out of its death spiral. Right now we're seeing the primary leadership that has led this poor performance get more entrenched.
222.eth 16e
100.eth 8.8e
lend.eth 8e
Joy.eth 3e
Yahoo.eth 3e
1666.eth 06e
9888.eth 08e
8181.eth 0.4e
9988.eth 0.6e
Comp.eth 0.15e
guo.eth 0.1e
It's already available on opensea and https://t.co/36JrxaK7BD!
Price drops continue! Unless ETH goes to zero, ENS is expected to appreciate in value!
@grailsmarket@furyan_eth@BrantlyMillegan@opensea
BIG week for new features on @grailsmarket!
➡️ Grails is the best @ensdomains manager & market, https://t.co/fSiiTVqOmb
✅ Grails Chat 💬
- Message any Ethereum account on the Grails app
- Easier negotiation between sellers and buyers
- Try it out: message me (brantly.eth) and say hi and i'll message you back! 🤝
✅ Comments 🗣️
- Public comments section on all name pages
- Name owner gets a notification!
✅ New ENS metadata service 🪪
- We built our own service to generate NFT images for ENS names
- Images should load much faster!
- Different colors for Registered, Premium, Available, Grace, w/ nice transitions
✅ Bulk Search page 🔎🔎🔎
- Grails has long had bulk search, up to 10k terms, built into the normal search
- This is a dedicated Bulk Service page with a large input box
- Find it in the More navbar menu, alongside Live Activity, Analytics, Leaderboard
I must have spoken with 90% of the top ENS grail owners, and I’m in regular contact with many of them.
But there’s one I’ve never been able to reach and I’m really looking for: 386.eth
I hope they’re here, see this, and get in touch with me. If anyone knows them, please pass this message along
That “discount” isn’t a discount.
It’s extracting your ETH, do not be stupid
Assuming ETH today = $2,300 and future ETH = $10,000. (we are close to bear market bottom)
1. Pay 5 years upfront
$8 × 5 years × 10 domains = $400
ETH spent today:
$400 ÷ $2,300 = 0.174 ETH
If ETH goes to $10K:
0.174 ETH × $10,000 = $1,740
So the lost ETH value = $1,740
Extra upside lost compared to $400 = $1,340