ENS Retro Eval Preliminary Results

[mikemetagov]

Hello all. The Metagov Research Team has completed its initial draft of the preliminary findings for ENS DAO. The paper outlining the preliminary recommendation can be found here (please feel free to embed your comments on the document)and there is a recorded presentation providing an overview of the recommendations here. We recorded the presentation as opposed to delivering it during a regularly scheduled NES meeting because we wanted to create as much time as possible for collaboration and discussion with ENS. To that end, the presentation and paper outlining the preliminary recommendations can be reviewed and then anyone/everyone is free to attend an office hour (times and links are below). These office hours will be unstructured (no presentation) but it provides the opportunity for anyone to attend, ask questions and engage in a discussion. All Office Hours will be recorded so we can use the data to help refine our final recommendations in Phase 3. We will also be setting up on Agora to solicit feedback in the next day or so.

We will be scheduling specific Office Hours for the quantitative results of the ENS Retro which we planned on completing this Friday (March 20^th) but will need to confirm given the possible changes in some of the data we were using on Tally. We will update you ASAP on when those results and Office Hours will be held.

We are also available to hold additional workshops, etc. to help gather feedback on the preliminary recommendations so if there are thoughts on what can be done beyond the Office Hours and Agora please share your thoughts. If you prefer to provide feedback in another manner let us know.

Current Office Hour Options:

March 18^th , 8:30-10:00 am (EST): https://meet.google.com/fnz-qsia-tgi

March 19^th , 3-4:30 pm (EST): https://meet.google.com/ytt-zaho-mzp

March 20^th, 8:30- 10:00 am (EST): https://meet.google.com/fnz-qsia-tgi

March 23^rd, 3-4:30 pm (EST): https://meet.google.com/ytt-zaho-mzp

After these workshops the research team will move to create final recommendations which will be presented to ENS around April 10^th.

We are here for questions and discussion please reach out to us.

Michael Cooper- mike@metagov.org or tg: @MCooperResearch

[estmcmxci]

Hi @mikemetagov, thanks for making time to review these preliminary findings.

For those short on time, I’ve put together an AI-powered reader that lets you query the preliminary findings directly → https://retrospective-frontend.vercel.app

My thoughts:

On a Masterplan Group

While I appreciate the intent behind a 12-month Masterplan group, the environment ENS operates in may not complement this approach. As noted elsewhere, the current coordination structures impose unwarranted overhead relative to ENS’s importance in the market environment.

Adding a standing design body on top risks compounding the very overhead the retrospective aims to eliminate, rather than reducing it.

A stronger case may be for a time-boxed body with a narrow mandate — not an elongated design process, but a sprint focused on translating the retrospective’s findings into actionable frameworks before any structural decisions are locked in.

Such a body would not be a standing committee but a permanent advisory council, convened to provide ongoing formal input to whatever accountability structure the DAO adopts — informing decisions without making them.

Transparency Infrastructure

The DAO already has templates for its governance process (Governance Process | ENS Docs). Although seldom surfaced, these remain valid documents that developers can use to understand and navigate the working environment.

With respect to establishing a Governance Repository and Transparency, several frameworks already exist and are in development (ENS Pulse, the DAO Newsletter).

Flattening the existing Working Group structure and allowing a community-informed Board to serve as the accountability layer appears more efficient than establishing a myriad of funding and initiative pathways.

On Delegate Accountability

The reality is that the ENS protocol requires technical expertise to exercise judgment on both the consideration and execution of proposals. The fact that there are (give or take) 10 delegates capable of putting forward executable proposals may be a feature, not a bug.

Regarding a delegate health dashboard, tools such as Anticapture - ENS DAO may already fulfill that role and are more focused on protocol security, which, by extension, reflects delegate health.

Notwithstanding, educating tokenholders on ENS is not implicitly part of the culture. The assumption is that most are committed to doing their own research (especially with the advent of AI on the ENS documentation page itself), and thus delegates should adopt a caveat emptor approach when engaging with ENS.

On Treasury Oversight

This is not a slight on any current, future, or prior steward; rather, the reality is that real-world companies typically assign this responsibility to trained professionals (i.e., FP&A teams).

Managing a million-dollar multisig is a considerable responsibility and creates liability for the unassuming—both in terms of financial risk and decision-making under uncertainty. I speak from experience.

I am not optimistic about creating spend-to-outcome pilots and delegating them to untrained individuals, especially in the current market environment. I feel more comfortable allowing professional teams to manage and administer budget allocation.

Moreover, the DAO has already contracted two teams to oversee its treasury and endowment; any structure that replaces the current one would benefit from borrowing established best practices.

Graduated Sanctions

Admittedly, I am scant on any opinion in this matter. I think a graduated sanctions framework is hopeful, but will be hard to enforce in reality.

Again, the real-world parallel is a separate human resources or compliance department, whose sole organizational responsibility is to oversee such matters.

Due to the nature of distributed work, I don’t see the urgency in establishing such a group, and I believe any financial or organizational discipline/responsibility can be managed by a narrower body or team.

Conclusion

Regardless of my stance, I’m hopeful that the retrospective will deliver a cohesive framework that can then be delegated to a team for execution.

Originally, I argued that the @Meta-Gov_Stewards should own and execute this, but with the potential winding down of Working Groups—or at the very least, their restructuring—the open question is how these findings will be actioned and who will be responsible for doing so.

[mikemetagov]

We appreciate your feedback and wanted to respond, as we see several points that can constructively move this work forward. We have organized our responses according to your original headers.

Overall, our Preliminary Recommendations were designed to elicit feedback that would inform our final recommendations. These preliminary recommendations should be considered the minimum threshold for sustainable decentralized governance, given the quality and scale of evidence supporting them. It’s not that ENS must implement all of these recommendations, but rather that doing so involves trade-offs among transparency, accountability, performance, and sustainability. The recceomdnations focused on integrating as many of these standards into the operating infrasturcture (templates, standards, KPIs, etc.) so that there is less risk of poor transpernacy, acountability and overall performacne due to the lack of skill sets, actions, etc. of any individual Delegate , working group, service provider, etc. Baking standards into the system mitigates poor behavior because those behaivors become much mroe difficult to perform on a sustianble basis.

On a Master Plan Group

We agree that creating a body or process focused on translating the retrospective’s findings into actionable frameworks—before any structural decisions are finalized—is essential. A Master Plan does not add unnecessary overhead; instead, it creates a clear threshold of accountability for all ENS stakeholders (Stewards, Labs, Delegates, Service Providers, Vendors, etc.) and ensures that any overhead is justified (i.e., all allocations and activities must align with the Master Plan).

While ENS already has articulated objectives and coordination mechanisms, our research found gaps and inconsistencies that warrant a Master Plan as a single source of accountability. As with all preliminary recommendations, the intent is not to replace what works in ENS, but to build upon it. If there is agreement on objectives, the Master Plan can be easily developed; if disagreement exists, the Master Plan serves as the forum to reach alignment. The body responsible for developing it should be representative and may have term limits, depending on its functions.

Transparency Infrastructure

We agree that the DAO already uses several templates and repositories. However, our research found that these are not consistently applied and often exist in silos, making it difficult for an average token holder to locate relevant information. The preliminary recommendations therefore suggest consolidating these resources into centralized, easily accessible locations, and standardizing templates in both design and usage.

Delegate Accountability

We agree that a certain level of expertise is required—not only for delegates but also for anyone involved in planning and overseeing the use of DAO funds. Anticapture is a good start toward a more robust Delegate Dashboard. The dashboard should monitor the specific actions ENS expects from its delegates (e.g., conflict-of-interest transparency, active voting, engagement with token holders, etc.), going beyond protocol security alone.

Treasury Oversight

We agree that effective treasury oversight requires specialized skill sets. Our objective was to focus on integrating best practices into processes (through the use of standardized procurment template, SPP reporting, etc.) so that ENS is less depdendent on individuals withthe right skill sets, etc. It is a risk managmenent best practice that we will build on inthe final report.

[estmcmxci]

Appreciate the detailed response, @mikemetagov.

On the Master Plan — point taken. My concern wasn’t with the concept, but with the risk of a standing design body that adds process before the process is validated. Your framing of it as a “clear threshold of accountability for all ENS stakeholders” is actually the stronger argument.

What I am advocating for, and what I think your co-creation proposal in the modification thread resolves, is the sequencing. The Master Plan shouldn’t be developed in a vacuum by the research team and handed to the DAO; it should be developed by the representative advisory body you’ve now proposed, informed by the research. That distinction matters for legitimacy.

On transparency infra and delegate accountability — agreed. The silos problem is real, and one I’ve explored in research elsewhere. The gap is that none of the existing tools are integrated or treated as canonical.

That’s a design problem an advisory body is primed to solve.