New foundation structure clears a hurdle for ENS’s new TLD application.

Ethereum Name Service has a new entity, clearing the path for the organization to obtain a new top level domain name.

ENS token holders approved a proposal for “Next Era of ENS DAO: Empowering the ENS Foundation.”

It establishes the ENS Foundation as an operating foundation with an executive director, staff, and a board that the token holders ratify.

The move will make it easier to apply for a new top level domain name with ICANN.

The organization plans to apply for .ens. Its web3 namespace uses .eth, but that name is reserved because it’s an ISO alpha code for Ethiopia.

Going after .ens instead of .eth might be a blessing in disguise, given the challenges of integrating an existing web3 namespace with active registrations with an ICANN-root domain.

It will be interesting to see what happens when ENS Foundation goes through the Registry Services Evaluation Policy (RSEP), and potentially also a Registry Service Technical Evaluation Panel, for a web3 integration if it can obtain .ens.

The approved proposal states that “Protocol control means smart contract upgrades, ENS pricing and fee structures, root key and registry control, DAO-held ENS tokens, constitutional amendments, and director appointment, renewal, and removal. Protocol control remains exclusively with ENS tokenholders.”

ENS Foundation will seemingly need to show that it, in fact, controls the .ens namespace in the Ethereum Name Service in order to integrate.