I love this proposal in spirit… but I think we have been conflating 3 things in this DAO can do with ENS in somewhat inappropriate ways. This DAO can use $ENS to do these 3 things:
- Governance Power
- Long Term Alignment
- Rewarding Contributions
I think all 3 have very specific approaches that make sense…
1. Governance Power
Governance Power should be delegated. People we want to have a voice don’t need to hold $ENS. If we think people deserve a voice in the DAO, let’s give them the voice, without the tax liability 
5-10k of voting power is not enough to make a difference IMO, and if we give them the ENS, can’t they just delegate it to someone else (or worse, sell it)? This category is the only category that really should be denominated in $ENS
It’s easy enough to spin up a Safe, put some $ENS in it and delegate it to the person/entity that needs a voice. I assume there is an even easier way i don’t know about…
2. Long Term Alignment
If we want a group to have long term alignment, we should give them locked tokens. This is what the current proposal is allocating to everyone. I would also consider using the lockups that Labs gives contributors as a standard practice, so a 4 year vesting with a 6 month cliff and 3.5 year stream.
One thing to consider also is if there is a way for the lockup to be revoked… like real traditional vesting that companies do. Lockups are fine, but a KPI based vesting would really get some skin in the game IMO.
Also this should really be denominated in USD value rather than # of $ENS. The alignment comes from its capital value. That is the skin in the game.
3. Rewarding Contributions
If someone did great work in the past and deserve to be rewarded for it, I think it is fine to pass out liquid ENS for that. It should also be denominated in USD value as it is a reward, and the value of the reward is really based on the market price of $ENS at the moment. It doesn’t make sense to be considered voting power. If we want to give someone voting power, we should delegate it to them.
These sorts of rewards are best given via clear guidelines applied to everyone equally. Optimism has done this really well… whether it is distributed via community voting (like RetroPGF) or if it is rewards for badgeholders, delegates, or NFT creators. Having a fair way outlined to distribute these rewards is really the right approach.
Mix and Match
If you want to give someone Rewards and Voting Power, have the DAO delegate to them and give them liquid $ENS. If you want to give someone voting power and get their long term alignment, have the DAO delegate to them and give them locked $ENS in a hedgy.
My assumption on why this is hard to accomplish.
I don’t know if any of the following is true, but…
I assume there is some sort of “ENS is a valueless governance token” thing that makes things harder than it should be. This is really challenging for me to deal with… but if we have to use the double speak of governance power for all 3 categories… fine. But, in practice, we should make sure we are applying these three buckets, even if we have to say everything is Governance power… We shouldn’t let the legal guidance/engineering confuse the correct strategies for aligning incentives properly.
Also, I imagine that its harder for people close to the foundation, specifically AVSA and Nick to say anything but “ENS is a Valueless Governace Token.” But delegates I don’t think have to live in that legal world as much and might have a bit more freedom to be real about these things… so if you need help proposing things, we are here for you!