ENS Working Group Spending Summaries

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Summary

This thread provides quarterly cash basis overviews of spending by the ENS DAO’s Ecosystem, Meta-Governance, and Public Goods Working Groups.

Definition

ENS Spending Summaries track how working groups spend the funds allocated to them by the DAO. The data is sourced directly from Working Group multi-sig wallet transactions.

Spending is reported on a cash basis, meaning expenses are recognized when funds leave the wallet, not when a service is delivered.

Example:

If the Ecosystem Working Group pays 100,000 USDC in Q1 to fund four hackathons scheduled throughout the year, the full 100,000 USDC is recorded in Q1, even though the events take place later.

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Additional Resources:

• enswallets.xyz: View live Working Group wallet balances
• safenotes.xyz/ens: View annotations for each Working Group transaction

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Past Spending Summaries

• H2 2022 Spending Summary
• H1 2023 Spending Summary
• H2 2023 Spending Summary
• Q1 2024 Spending Summary
• Q2 2024 Spending Summary
• Q3 2024 Spending Summary
• Q4 2024 Spending Summary

Beginning in 2024, ENS transitioned to quarterly spending summaries for greater granularity.

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Q1 2025 Spending Summary

All Working Groups

The USD equivalent of total Working Group spending for Q1 was $642k. USD price conversions for ETH are made using end-of-day pricing sourced from CoinGecko. The price of USDC is hard coded as $1. Numbers in diagrams are rounded to the nearest thousand.

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem working group spent 268,520 USDC during Q1.

Spending Across Initiatives
The diagram below depicts Ecosystem Working Group spending in detail.

Events

The Ecosystem Working Group engaged with the community at ETHDenver and co-hosted a social event with Linea.

Services

Services include payments for discord moderation, newsletter curation, and DAO social media management on X and Farcaster.

Hackathons

The sponsorship of ETH Global is for 2025 and covers the costs associated for five different events and hacker prizes.

Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group spent 210,400 USDC during Q1.

Spending Across Initiatives

DAO Tooling

DAO Tooling consists of costs associated with tools needed for DAO functions such as automation, voting, coordination.

Events

Events includes costs associated with irl presence at ETHDenver.

Compensation

The Meta-Governance working group funds compensation to working group stewards, secretary, and scribe as provisioned in the ENS DAO Steward Compensation forum post.

.eth Price Research

The Meta-Governance Working Group engaged @danch.quixote for price research on .eth names.

Public Goods

The Public Goods Working Group spent 111,030 USDC and 14.9 ETH during Q1.

Spending Across Initiatives
The diagram below depicts Public Goods Working Group spending in detail.

Grants

Public Goods grants were distributed to Large Grants recipients for milestone completions. You can check out the projects, progress, and milestones on Questbook.

Additionally, ETH was allocated to the Builder Grants platform and matching funds were put up for a Giveth public goods quadratic funding round.

Bounty

A bounty was paid for a data exposure bug discovered on the builder grants platform.

Governance Distribution

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem Working Group distributed 250 ENS tokens during Q1.

This governance distribution was related to the the Term 5 grants closeout, where all term 5 grant recipients received ENS tokens for their contributions in 2024.

Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group distributed 24,965 ENS tokens during Q1.

The Meta-Governance Working Group distributed 24,965 ENS tokens in Hedgey Vesting contracts to execute on the [EP 5.26] ENS Governance Distribution.

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Q2 2025 Spending Summary

All Working Groups

Total Working Group spending for Q2 was $684k.

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem working group spent 193,666 USDC and 5 ETH in Q2.

Spending Across Initiatives

Events

The Ecosystem Working Group held the ENS Cannes event during ETH CC, where they had 7 presentations from ENS Labs, Service Providers, and notable ENS projects.

Services

Services include payments for discord moderation, newsletter curation, and DAO social media management on X and Farcaster.

Misc

The ecosystem team added ETH to the ENS Fairy wallet.

Grants

Various grants were distributed during Q2. Grant details can be seen here.

Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group spent 217,000 USDC during Q2.

Spending Across Initiatives

Events

The Meta-Governance working group reimbursed travel expenses for Alex Netto.

Compensation

The Meta-Governance working group funds compensation to working group stewards, secretary, and scribe as provisioned in the ENS DAO Steward Compensation forum post.

.eth Price Research

The Meta-Governance Working Group engaged @danch.quixote for price research on .eth names.

Grants

Three $20k grants were provided to teams who built user interfaces for voting in service provider program 2.

Public Goods

The Public Goods Working Group spent 264,495 USDC during Q2.

Spending Across Initiatives

Events

Funds went to the sponsorship of DAO Tokyo 2025 and expenses related to ETH CC in Cannes.

Grants

Public Goods initiated their Strategic Grants program during Q2, awarding grants to the Decentralization Research Center, Remix, and Fabric.

Governance Distributions

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem Working Group distributed 3,200 ENS tokens during Q2.

These tokens were allocated to Term 6 grant recipients.

Footnotes

1. Numbers in sankey diagrams and pie chart are rounded to the nearest thousand
2. While the price of USDC technically fluctuates, it is treated as $1 for the purposes of this report
3. USD price conversions for ETH are made using end-of-day pricing sourced from CoinGecko

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Q3 2025 Spending Summary

All Working Groups

Total Working Group spending for Q3 was $627k.

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem working group spent 112,893 USDC and 3 ETH in Q3.

Spending Across Initiatives

Grants

Various grants were distributed during Q2. Grant details can be seen here.

Events

The Ecosystem Working Group paid expenses related to the ENS Cannes event, where they had 7 presentations from ENS Labs, Service Providers, and notable ENS projects.

Additionally, the upcoming event during Devconnect was paid for during Q3.

Services

Services include payments for discord moderation, newsletter curation, and DAO social media management on X and Farcaster.

Hackathons

Ecosystem paid for the sponsorship of the ETH Accra and ETH Rome hackathons.

Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group spent 207,000 USDC during Q3.

Spending Across Initiatives

Compensation

The Meta-Governance working group funds compensation to working group stewards, secretary, and scribe as provisioned in the ENS DAO Steward Compensation forum post.

Grants

A 60k USDC grant was awarded to @lighthousegov to establish a governance record standard using ENS.

Public Goods

The Public Goods Working Group spent 207,678 USDC and 10 ETH during Q3.

Spending Across Initiatives

Grants

During the quarter, Public Goods issued grants to Vyper, Argot, and have conducted ongoing ICANN Engagement and Policy advocacy.

Additionally, Public Goods funds smaller teams through their builder grants platform.

Governance Distributions

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem Working Group distributed 900 ENS tokens during Q3.

These tokens were allocated to Term 6 grant recipients.

Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group distributed 21,637 ENS tokens during Q3.

These tokens were deployed into Hedgey vesting contracts according to the parameters stated in EP5.18 ENS DAO Steward Compensation Structure.

Footnotes

1. Numbers in sankey diagrams and pie chart are rounded to the nearest thousand.
2. While the price of USDC technically fluctuates, it is treated as $1 for the purposes of this report.
3. USD price conversions for ETH are made using end-of-day pricing sourced from CoinGecko.
4. A transaction to send 61k USDC to zkEMail was executed for Service Provider stream backpay as there wasn’t enough USDC in the stream pod to cover it. This is classified as an informal loan to the DAO rather than an expense and therefor is not included in the spending report.

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Q4 2025 Spending Summary

Total Working Group spending for Q4 was $379k.

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Ecosystem

The Ecosystem Working Group spent 53,505 USDC and 3.3 ETH in Q4.

Grants - $20,000

The Ecosystem working group funded two grants (summary) this quarter to projects building tools for the ENS ecosystem:

• ENSdata.net - $10,000 - Analytics and data platform for ENS
• ENSideas.com API - $10,000 - API infrastructure for ENS-related services

Events - $19,000

The working group supported ENS presence at Devconnect in Buenos Aires, covering event costs and merchandise:

• Devconnect Event + Merch - $19,000

Services - $10,000

Ongoing payments for Discord moderation, newsletter curation, and social media management:

• Discord Moderation - $4,900
• Newsletter - $3,000
• Social Media - $1,680

Hackathons - $5,000

The working group sponsored hackathon prizes at ETH Rome to support developer engagement in Europe:

• ETH Rome - $5,040

Misc - $10,000

ENS Fairy

• ENS Fairy Premium Name Registrations - $9,256
• ENS Fairy Bot Refill - $1,180

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Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group spent 175,092 USDC during Q4.

Compensation - $174,500

The Meta-Governance working group provides compensation to working group stewards, the secretary, and scribe as provisioned in the ENS DAO Steward Compensation forum post. Additionally, the working group funded
council work related to the OpenBox ICANN initiative and delegation analysis research:

• Steward Compensation - $121,500
• Secretary Compensation - $16,500
• OpenBox Council - $20,000 - Compensation for council members evaluating the ENS DAO investment (proposal) in OpenBox Inc for the 2026 ICANN gTLD round
• Scribe Compensation - $9,000
• Delegation Analysis - $7,500 - Contracted research and analysis called (ENS Distribution Monitor) around the effectiveness of increasing delegation in previous governance distributions.

Events

The working group paid for a dinner for consensus building among ENS delegates during Devconnect:

• Delegates Dinner - $592

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Public Goods

The Public Goods Working Group spent 77,400 USDC and 19 ETH during Q4.

Grants - $86,000

The Public Goods working group continued distributing builder grants (info) to smaller teams through their builder grants platform, and funded ongoing ICANN engagement and policy advocacy research:

• Builder Grants - $78,000 - Distributed as 19 ETH to builders in the ENS ecosystem
• ICANN Research - $8,000 - Research supporting ENS positioning (discussion) for the 2026 ICANN gTLD application round

Services - $40,000

Payment for development work on the builder grants platform infrastructure:

• Builder Grants Platform Development - $40,000

Events - $15,000

Travel reimbursements for working group members attending key industry events:

• Devconnect - $8,000
• DAO Tokyo - $4,500
• ICANN Conference - $2,000

Governance Distributions

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem Working Group distributed 400 ENS tokens during Q4 to Term 6 grant recipients:

Recipient	ENS
ENSdata.net	200
ENSideas.com	200

Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance Working Group distributed 600 ENS tokens during Q4 for council and research work:

Recipient	ENS
OpenBox Council	400
Delegation Analysis	200

Note: Differences between the Sankey diagrams and the figures listed above are due to rounding to the nearest thousand.