Share this article

Vote to Remove Brantly Millegan From ENS Foundation Likely to Fail

Millegan was removed as a steward of the DAO behind the Ethereum Names Service and the True Names Foundation.

ENS Foundation's Brantly Millegan on the right (CoinDesk Archives)
ENS Foundation's Brantly Millegan on the right (CoinDesk Archives)

A vote to oust Brantly Millegan as a director of the Cayman Islands-registered ENS Foundation, the legal entity behind the eponymous distributed autonomous organization (DAO), is likely to fail with 45% against his removal and 15% abstaining.

  • In early February, Millegan, a core contributor to Ethereum Names Service, was relieved from his position as steward of the ENS DAO and True Names Ltd. for tweets that espoused traditional Catholic views.
  • The development of the ENS code is managed by True Names Ltd. ENS Foundation is the parent of True Names Ltd.
  • Voting is conducted on a one-token-one-vote basis, with Millegan allowed to cast his own vote. Millegan is the largest voter so far, given his holdings.
  • Nick Johnson, founder and lead developer of ENS, who fired Millegan from True Names Ltd. has decided to abstain from voting according to on-chain data.
  • Before Johnson fired Millegan, he was a vocal supporter, tweeting that he had “never seen Brantly treat anyone as different or lesser because of who they are.”
  • The initial decision to fire Millegan was met with some hostility from the ENS community, with members highlighting the irony of a decentralized service censuring someone for his religious beliefs.
  • ENS’ token is up 1% on-day, according to CoinGecko, trading at $15.20.

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.

Sam Reynolds