Summary
The committee recommends Nomentum Labs, operating Grails, as the SPP3 Marketplace RFP awardee. The total award amount is $500,000, the maximum authorized under [7.1] [Social] SPP3 Marketplace RFP. The award consists of a $400,000 base award and up to $100,000 released on performance-based traction gates.
The Marketplace RFP received nine applications requesting a combined $4,295,000 against a single award. One application was returned at the eligibility gate. The remaining eight were interviewed and scored by every member against the published rubric. Nomentum Labs scored 3.84 out of 5.0.
This proposal names the selected provider, states the rationale, publishes the winning score as the RFP rules require, and explains in aggregate why the other applicants were not selected.
Per [7.1] [Social] SPP3 Marketplace RFP, this recommendation is submitted as an on-chain executable. If passing, funds move to the MetaGov Stream Management Pod on execution and are released to Nomentum Labs under the Award Notice, after KYC. The awardee joins the SPP3 cohort’s reporting and oversight structure for a term co-terminating with the cohort in Q3 2027.
Award
| Provider | Product | Base | Performance-gated | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nomentum Labs | Grails (grails.app) | $400,000 | $100,000 | $500,000 |
Nomentum Labs
Grails is a live, ENS-only marketplace and portfolio manager that has operated since November 2025. Its activity is attributed on a public Dune dashboard with ten published queries that anyone can re-run. In H1 2026 it facilitated $397,000 to the ENS DAO in registrations and renewals ($205,000 in Q1, $192,000 in Q2), an annualized rate of roughly $794,000 against a $500,000 award. Lifetime it has facilitated 7,790 registrations and 73,934 renewals from 989 active wallets, with a 71% repeat-usage rate, and contributed 221.68 ETH to the DAO. The marketplace referral data the committee cited when it proposed this RFP is substantially Grails activity.
The team’s understanding of its users was the strongest in the round. Bulk renewal is the most-used feature, and power users renew on a weekly or daily cadence to manage large portfolios. That behavior is what makes the funded registry agent a plausible driver of renewal revenue.
The funded scope, in delivery order is ENSv2 readiness, a registry agent for expiration and portfolio management, a UI/UX redesign, and a mobile application with a secondary-sale fee switch, alongside continued operation of the marketplace.
The ENSv2 plan was the most specific in the round: resolution through the Universal Resolver with CCIP-Read conformance, an indexer rebuilt around the RegistryDatastore for hierarchical ownership, a dual-state portfolio with a bulk upgrade flow, version-aware expiry handling for the removed grace period, and listing-safety watchers that cancel orders when a listed name migrates. The team has prototyped this against the official Sepolia deployment. Hybrid v1/v2 support runs in parallel so a slipped ENSv2 mainnet date does not strand the product. This prioritization reflects a committee request to move ENSv2 readiness to the first build milestone.
The committee took note of weaknesses in the application. Nomentum Labs is a new entity with no milestone or reporting record of its own, and the product is under a year old. Additionally the individual who drove distribution has stepped back from the project, and the team named marketing as its biggest gap. Post-award sustainability rests on a subscription tier that is unbuilt and unpriced and a secondary-sale fee that at current volumes earns roughly $1,100 a quarter; the team acknowledged that the DAO is the business model today. The traction gates as first submitted released money for holding baseline; the revised structure below moves all performance money above baseline.
Payment structure
The award is structured to match a product that is already live and a team that has no other income.
- $90,000 up-front, paid on execution to the MetaGov Stream Management Pod and released to Nomentum Labs in $30,000 monthly installments over the first quarter, subject to KYC and the executed Award Notice.
- $310,000 as a stream, opened by MetaGov from the pod on committee verification of the ENSv2 readiness milestone (target Q4 2026, or sufficient progress at the committee’s judgment), running to term end.
- $100,000 available in four performance gates of $25,000, held in the pod and released only on verified results. Q1 2027: attributed protocol revenue at or above the at-signing baseline; at least 150 distinct wallets completing value-transferring actions in the quarter. Term end: revenue on pace for $1,000,000 a year; at least 250 ETH of filtered secondary volume over the prior two quarters.
The revenue baseline is Grails’s attributed revenue over the 90 days before signing, taken from Dune query 8064446. The non-custodial architecture and funded wind-down plan required by [7.1] [Social] SPP3 Marketplace RFP are conditions of the first milestone; the $25,000 wind-down escrow is funded from the award when the stream opens. Unreleased funds return to the treasury at term end.
MetaGov stewards have confirmed the payment mechanics which utilize the existing custody structures.
Eligibility and the EthID relationship
Nomentum Labs was formed by the three engineers who designed, built, and operate Grails at EthID. EthID was an SPP1 and SPP2 provider and was selected for the SPP3 cohort in EP 6.49 before declining its award. The product, brand, domain, repositories, data, and infrastructure are transferring to Nomentum Labs under agreement from EthID. Brantly Millegan is not a member of, advisor to, or stakeholder in Nomentum Labs.
The RFP excludes ratified SPP3 cohort providers, and EthID declined before the executable passed and received no SPP3 funds. Nomentum Labs is a separate legal entity with no prior SPP award. The committee concluded that funding the same engineers to continue the same product creates no double-funding and is the outcome most consistent with an RFP written to fill the vacancy EthID’s decline created.
Committee Members individually confirmed no undisclosed relationship with the Nomentum Labs team. No recusals were required.
Committee Assessment
Scores are the mean of the four scoring members’ individual scores against the published rubric. Weights: Prior Delivery and Marketplace Impact 25%, Scope Clarity and Milestone Credibility 20%, Revenue and Adoption 35%, ENS Alignment and ENSv2 Readiness 10%, Post-Award Self-Sustainability 10%. The award threshold is 3.0 weighted. Individual scoring records remain internal working documents, available to the accountability body or ENS Foundation on request.
| Provider | M1 Prior Delivery | M2 Scope & Milestones | M3 Revenue & Adoption | M4 ENS / ENSv2 | M5 Sustainability | Weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nomentum Labs | 4.38 | 3.38 | 4.00 | 4.12 | 2.62 | 3.84 |
Nomentum Labs was the top-scored application for every member individually. The nearest applicants scored 2.97.
M1 Prior Delivery (4.38). The only applicant with attributed, independently reproducible marketplace impact. Held below 5 because the entity is new, the record spans EthID’s tenure, and the team’s distribution lead has left.
M2 Scope & Milestones (3.38). Milestones are dated, priced, and verifiable with existing verification surface. Docked because the gates as first submitted paid for maintaining baseline and measured secondary volume when renewals dominate usage; both were corrected in negotiation.
M3 Revenue & Adoption (4.00). The strongest verified adoption in the pool by a wide margin, at a rate that offsets the award. Scored both on currently existing adoption as well as the forecast. Committee acknowledged marketing as its biggest gap, and the growth plan leans on shipping product rather than reaching new users.
M4 ENS / ENSv2 (4.12). The team is soley serving ENS, with no other ecosystem dividing the team’s attention. The most concrete ENSv2 plan submitted, prototyped against Sepolia. Held below 5 because production integration waits on ENS Labs’ mainnet timeline.
M5 Sustainability (2.62). Lowest score for team. Lean cost base and a stated commitment to cover operating costs from marketplace revenue by term end, but the subscription tier is unbuilt and unpriced and the secondary fee is thin. Without the award, current revenue does not cover the three-person team.
Why Applications Were Not Selected
Decline rationale is published in aggregate. Applicants have been contacted directly. The RFP funds one marketplace, so every application was measured against the field as well as the rubric. The patterns below recurred; most declined applications showed more than one.
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No attributed ENS revenue. M3 carries 35% of the weight and the RFP asked for verifiable, attributed protocol revenue. Most applicants could show none: the product was pre-launch, recently relaunched, or dormant, or ENS activity could not be separated from a broader product. Several proposals declined to commit to absolute traction targets and offered share-of-referral or category-wide metrics instead. One applicant had proven revenue at scale.
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Pre-launch or thin operating base. Several applications proposed to build or restore a marketplace after award. The gate admitted near-term go-lives on dated plans, but a six-to-eight-week build, a disabled feature set, or a beta with no users cannot score against a product with a year of attributed activity. Two proposing organizations had never operated an ENS marketplace.
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ENS as one vertical among many. Where ENS is one asset category inside a multi-chain marketplace or one client ecosystem among several, ENSv2 readiness fell outside the funded scope and attention was structurally divided.
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Team and delivery risk. Single-person engineering teams, unmade senior hires on which every non-live milestone depended, unaudited contracts live with user funds, technical leads absent from interviews, and recent acquisitions unmentioned in the proposal all weighed on M1 and M2. Scope that changed between the written submission and the interview, or milestones handed back to the committee to define, scored poorly on milestone credibility.
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Growth services in place of product. Some proposals allocated a large share of budget to marketing, education, or community programs. The RFP scope excludes growth services detached from a marketplace product, and the committee did not fund them indirectly.
One application was returned at the eligibility gate: the submission was incomplete and the linked product was not a marketplace.
Process
All eight qualifying applications were evaluated by all four scoring members. Structured interviews were held with each team between August 5 and August 18 in a consistent format, with at least two committee representatives including the Chair, and recorded for absent members. Each member scored independently without sight of other members’ scores. No recusals occurred. One application carried a disclosed relationship with a cohort provider; the committee reviewed it under the conflict rules and found no committee-level conflict.
The submission window closed August 5 and evaluation concluded within the published timeline. As with the cohort recommendation, this proposal is take-it-or-leave-it by design: delegates vote on the committee’s selection rather than re-running the evaluation. Delegates who disagree may vote against it.
Additional Findings
Of the nine applicants there were several which had long-standing reputation in either the Web3 and existing ENS ecosystem. Although they were not selected, it is recognized that their current or renewed involvement is beneficial to the ENS ecosystem. It was the committee’s impression that a further-developed referral program would be highly useful to both incentive involvement and provide support for these valuable teams.
Next Steps
- The executable proposal is tentatively scheduled for posting on Monday, August 31, for a 7-day vote followed by the 2-day timelock.
- The Award Notice and KYC process will begin in parallel with the vote and will be finalized by the ENS Foundation. The executed EthID transfer agreement is a precondition to countersigning.
- On execution, the $90,000 up-front amount and the $100,000 performance reserve move to the Stream Management Pod, and the master stream is raised to fund the $310,000 stream. MetaGov releases funds under the Award Notice.
- Nomentum Labs joins the SPP3 reporting cadence: a Quarterly Report within 30 days of each calendar quarter end, with a public version posted in the Service Provider Program forum category.
Specification
On-chain payload pending specification. This post will serve as the draft executable proposal.