aox.eth (@aoxborrow on twitter) has been an active community member promoting the merits of ens for many months. he developed ens.tools which is the primary(and only?) source that thousands of people use to monitor ens expired auctions. go look at the last thousand domains that were purchased during the auction and try to realize a huge chunk of that revenue is due to having this tool that easily tracks all auctions which creates a high degree of competition and higher registration prices.
heres aox on a podcast debating on the merits of ens vs handshake domains about 2 months ago on june 6th - ENS vs. Handshake - DNW Podcast #391 - Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News
someone over at handshake is very smart and is actively looking to recruit from the community. just a couple weeks later aox announces he was hired by them
i see this as a massive loss to the ens community. i don’t think it’s a hard stretch to imagine ens.tools will very likely cease development entirely. and the auction aggregator that everyone uses will likely go offline if it’s made in his best financial interest to do so.
will aox.eth ever again use his own time and energy, unpaid, to go on a podcast and debate the merits of ens? to me it seems very unlikely
i don’t think the sole strategy of sitting back and expecting people to research the intricacies of the dao and how it handles its finances in order to get funding is optimal. there needs to also be some kind of active talent scout and recruiting process imo
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also i don’t mean to speak for aox, maybe im wrong. just making what i see as rather obvious conclusions from the information available
Thanks for bringing this up. With funding secured until the end of the year, the ENS Ecosystem working group is now better positioned to distribute grants to builders in the ENS community, so we can better retain talent and acknowledge contributions that help move ENS forward.
Some context on funding:
Ecosystem Working Group
Last term (Q1/Q2) the Ecosystem working group had a total budget of $50k USDC to distribute across initiatives. Yesterday, an executable proposal was passed that will distribute $1.5m USDC to the Ecosystem working group. A significant portion of this funding will be assigned specifically to fund developers in the ENS community, so we can improve the financial support we provide builders.
Now that the Ecosystem working group has funding covered, I imagine that stewards will focus their attention on improving the clarity and visibility around the different ways community members can access grants. You’re right, people shouldn’t have to be familiar with the intricacies of the DAO to access funds from working groups.
TNL
In terms of TNL, we actively try to hire talent from the community. TNL secured funding from the DAO last month, which places us in a much better position to ensure that money and job opportunities are available to builders within the ENS Ecosystem.
Recruitment
Regarding recruitment or scouting, if you come across someone you think isn’t getting enough credit or know of someone who is building in the ENS Ecosystem and needs funding, please let me know or reach out to any/all of the following people:
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