Who Protects the Grantees: A Continuity Framework for ENS Grants in Transition

The temp check spends considerable space on who controls the treasury. It spends almost no space on who protects the people who depend on it. Right now there are active ENS grantees. Teams who took a grant, hired people, made commitments, and started building. They did that on the assumption that ENS governance -- whatever form it takes -- honors its obligations. The temp check transfers grant-making authority to the Foundation without specifying what happens to those obligations if the Foundation structure changes mid-stream. That is not a hypothetical. It is a design gap. If the three-year performance review triggers a wind-down, what happens to a grantee in month 18 of a 24-month grant? If the board is restructured following a removal petition, who is responsible for grants approved by the previous board? If the Foundation pivots its grant priorities, do existing grantees have any protection against mid-stream cancellation? The proposal does not answer these questions. It should. PART 1: A GRANTS CONTINUITY ESCROW. At the point of treasury transfer, a separate continuity escrow is funded with 24 months of committed grant obligations -- the full value of all active grants at the time of transfer. This escrow sits outside Foundation operational control. It is governed by a simple multisig: two Foundation directors, one DAO-elected representative, one independent trustee. The escrow has one purpose: if the Foundation structure changes for any reason -- wind-down, restructure, removal -- active grantees continue to receive their committed funding on schedule until their grant term ends. The Foundation's internal problems do not become the grantee's problem. This is standard practice in institutional grant-making. When a foundation winds down, committed grants are honored. ENS should say that explicitly rather than leaving it implied. PART 2: A GRANTEE BILL OF RIGHTS. Grant recipients should have four explicit protections written into the Foundation charter. First, a 90-day notice requirement before any active grant is modified, reduced, or cancelled for reasons other than grantee non-performance. Second, an independent appeals process for grant decisions -- not appealable to the board that made the decision, but to an independent reviewer appointed by the DAO. Third, a public grants registry: every active grant, its term, its value, and its current status, published on-chain and updated quarterly. This is not a transparency measure. It is a commitment device -- once a grant is publicly registered, cancellation requires a public explanation. Fourth, a non-retaliation clause: grantees who participate in removal petitions, governance votes, or public criticism of Foundation decisions cannot have their grants modified or cancelled as a result. This is the grants-layer version of the nullifier petition problem. The chilling effect runs both directions. PART 3: A TRANSITION PROTOCOL. If the three-year performance review triggers a wind-down, or if a removal petition succeeds, a 90-day transition protocol activates automatically. Day 1 to 30: the Foundation publishes a complete grants inventory -- every active commitment, every pending application, every approved but undisbursed grant. Day 31 to 60: the DAO appoints a transition committee with authority to honor, transfer, or wind down each commitment. The continuity escrow covers any grants that cannot be transferred. Day 61 to 90: all remaining obligations are either transferred to a successor structure or funded through the escrow. No grantee falls through the gap. WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND ENS. The governance debate about the ENS Foundation has focused almost entirely on the relationship between the DAO and the Foundation. That is the right debate to have. But there is a third party in this structure that has no voice in the temp check: the people who build on ENS because they trusted ENS governance to honor its commitments. A foundation that cannot protect its grantees through its own transitions is not a durable institution. It is a structure that works until it does not, and then fails the people who depended on it most. These three protections do not require the Foundation model to be rebuilt. They require it to take its obligations to grantees as seriously as it takes its obligations to tokenholders.