ENS Proposes Moving Ethereum Domain Registrations to Upgraded ENSv2 System
Key Takeaways
- •ENS founder Nick Johnson has submitted an executable draft proposal for the DAO to approve activating the ENSv2 protocol upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet.
- •If approved, new .eth registrations would be frozen on the original registrar and move to the upgraded system once domain records are synchronized, with new registrations unavailable for several hours during the transition.
- •ENSv2 introduces a redesigned registry with more flexible domain management and permissions, and ENS Labs plans to transfer its remaining administrative control over the upgraded contracts to the DAO.
- •Current domain holders are not required to migrate, as their names will continue functioning normally and have been reserved for them on the upgraded system.
- •Approval requires at least 1% voter participation, or 1 million ENS votes, plus majority approval during a seven-day voting period and a minimum two-day timelock, with no voting date announced yet.
The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is seeking approval from its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to activate an upgraded version of its naming protocol on the Ethereum mainnet. The protocol underpins human-readable names ending in ".eth" that can stand in for long alphanumeric wallet addresses across the Ethereum ecosystem.
ENS founder Nick Johnson submitted an executable draft proposal to activate ENSv2, the next version of the protocol, on the ENS governance forum. If approved, the upgrade would freeze new registrations on the original ENS registrar, while existing domain holders would remain able to renew their names.
ENSv2 introduces a redesigned registry architecture with more flexible domain management and permissions. Following activation, ENS Labs plans to transfer its remaining administrative control over the upgraded contracts to the DAO, placing the upgraded system under the same community governance process now weighing its activation.
New .eth registrations would move to the upgraded system once domain records have been synchronized. Johnson warned that new registrations would be temporarily unavailable on either version for several hours during the transition — a window that would matter most to users planning to register a fresh name, rather than to current holders.
Existing domain holders are not required to migrate, and their names would continue functioning normally, according to the proposal. ENS Labs has also reserved existing .eth names for their current owners on the upgraded system, allowing users to migrate when ready.
The activation proposal remains in the draft stage and must advance to an onchain DAO vote before implementation. Under ENS governance rules, executable proposals require at least 1% voter participation — representing 1 million ENS votes — along with majority approval during a seven-day voting period. If approved, the upgrade would be subject to a minimum two-day timelock before execution. A voting date has not yet been announced, leaving the vote outcome, the record synchronization timeline, and the start of the registration freeze as the key milestones to watch.
