The choice to use USDC is dictated by the proposal we passed last year to fund ENS Labs (TNL at the time).
Alisha mentioned that proposal above. It passed last year, [EP2.1] [Executable] Funding True Names Ltd, it outlines that $11,500 worth of USDC is streamed daily to the ENS Labs team to fund the operation.
The DAO wallet literally has to have USDC in it so that the stream contract can deliver it.
I believe James is planning to re-write this and break it up into several smaller Gnosis auctions as a way to DCA the swap.
Yes, it would be good to hear more from Kartpatkey. They did participate a bit in the Twitter space earlier. Their proposal includes a similar swap to USDC, but it also contains several other components that have been contentious and might need more discussion. The thought here is we can decouple this move to get it done soon, so that we can meet budgets now and ensure that the endowment discussion won’t be pressured by the dwindling USDC reserves.