We are leading a project sponsored by the Metagov Working Group to create a protocol for storing organizational metadata on ENS. The end result will be a standardized way for any kind of organizational structure to be represented as records stored under an ENS name. The most immediate use case will be for DAOs who want to offer transparency and security in sharing information about their organizational structure.
Storing this data on-chain would allow DAOs to:
Present an official, public list of all their contract addresses (treasury, voting, governance tokens, etc)
Describe the organizational structure of working groups, councils, committees, and any other bodies that are sanctioned by the DAO.
Publicly acknowledge paid and/or unpaid delegates, and create a space for them to publish delegate statements, conflict of interest disclaimers, or other important information.
Publish information that is required for regulatory reasons, such as contact details for an associated DUNA or legal entity, limited liability disclaimers, etc.
DAOs already use ENS names to represent themselves in a trustless/decentralized way, and for the DAOs whose ENS records can only be updated as the result of a DAO vote, organizational records will be considered the single source of truth.
What to expect
The initiative to develop this protocol is being led by Lighthouse Labs. The project was previously discussed here. We plan to produce a technical spec that can be published as an ENSIP or EIP, with a PoC implementation of code that populates and reads organizational records from ENS.
We will be holding regular meetings on Thursdays at 10am ET (3pm GMT) as listed on our Luma page. Our expected schedule is as follows:
September 25, 2025: Chat with Ori from Mechanism Institute on strategy for community adoption
Hey jkm.eth, love this initiative. I understand the @Meta-Gov_Stewards sponsored your proposal.
Could Lighthouse Labs share written progress updates toward the tech spec? Perhaps updating this thread. That way, when the time comes to present it to the DAO and the development teams supporting the protocol, they’ll already be primed on the implementation and its use cases.
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It makes sense for policy to follow processes that default to verifiable, trustless mechanisms. I’m curious how developments from your initiative might carry over into discussions about the role the DAO’s legal wrapper plays, and whether organizational metadata could help formalize or clarify those responsibilities in a transparent, onchain way.
We spoke with Ori Shimony, a researcher with the EF, about why he thinks this project is important and what we can learn from his experience. Below is a summary of the conversation.
Ori’s Background & Experience
Currently at Ethereum Foundation doing use case research
Identifying technical/adoption blockers for nascent use cases
Developing interventions and collaborations to remove barriers
Founded Mechanism Institute
Created mechanism library cataloguing onchain mechanisms design space
Covers governance, public goods funding, DeFi market mechanisms
Led dOrg (2019-2022)
First service DAO and first DAO with legal entity (Vermont BBLC)
Built DAO tooling and Web3 infrastructure through consulting model
Still operating with 6-8 active projects, ~150 contributors total
Private DAO with strict hiring process and non-transferable reputation tokens
What do you see as the most important use cases for organizational metadata?
Counterparty verification and legitimacy
Service providers need verifiable credentials when representing organizations
Similar to corporate registries (UK Companies House) but for Web3
Addresses authorization problems (e.g., former members misrepresenting affiliation)
Legal compliance and transparency
Essential for DAOs with legal wrappers (Duna, Marshall Islands structures)
Could become source of truth for organizational agreements and bylaws
Enables programmatic compliance monitoring
Website and domain verification
Link between Web2 presence (websites) and Web3 identity
Custom ENS resolvers to verify CNAME connections
Prevents phishing and establishes official channels
Enhanced wallet/interface integration
Metamask showing verified contract names during transactions
Profile verification across platforms (similar to X verification)