The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is officially seeking approval from its decentralized autonomous organization to activate a major upgraded naming protocol directly on the Ethereum mainnet, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of the decentralized domain ecosystem.
Nick Johnson, the founder of ENS, has formally submitted an executable draft proposal designed to activate ENSv2, which represents the next evolutionary phase of the protocol. If the decentralized community grants its approval, the sweeping upgrade will freeze new domain registrations on the original ENS registrar. However, existing domain holders will retain the continuous ability to renew their names seamlessly without disruption.
The proposed upgrade introduces a thoroughly redesigned registry architecture engineered to provide users with much more flexible domain management capabilities and advanced permission structures. Following the successful activation of the protocol, ENS Labs has outlined explicit plans to transfer its remaining administrative control over the newly upgraded smart contracts directly to the DAO, further deepening the project’s commitment to complete decentralization.
According to the details outlined in the proposal, new .eth registrations will eventually migrate over to the upgraded system once all underlying domain records have been fully synchronized. Johnson issued a technical warning noting that new registrations will be temporarily unavailable on either version of the protocol for a period of several hours during the ongoing transition phase to ensure data integrity and smooth processing.
For current participants in the ecosystem, existing domain holders are not required to migrate their assets immediately. Their existing names will continue functioning normally, according to the stipulations of the proposal. To ease the transition, ENS Labs has reserved existing .eth names for their current rightful owners on the upgraded system, granting users the freedom and flexibility to migrate their domains whenever they feel personally ready to do so.
The activation proposal currently remains in its preliminary draft stage and must successfully advance through the formal governance pipeline to an onchain DAO vote before any actual implementation can take place.
Under the established ENS governance rules, executable proposals require a minimum threshold of at least one percent voter participation, which translates to one million ENS votes, alongside a majority approval rating during a mandatory seven-day voting period. Should the proposal clear this hurdle and secure approval, the upgrade will still be subjected to a mandatory minimum two-day timelock period before final execution on the blockchain. At the time of the draft submission, an official voting date has not yet been formally announced by the community organizers.
