True Names Limited terminated the contract of Brantly Millegan, its director of operations, on February 7, 2022. ENS founder Nick Johnson announced the move on X on February 7, 20221. Delegates in the ENS DAO had already voted that weekend to remove Millegan as a community steward, CoinDesk reported2.
Nine executive exits on the record in 2022
Executive exits CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2022: 9
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 6 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2021 | 9 |
| 2022 | 9 |
| 2023 | 8 |
| 2024 | 11 |
| 2025 | 20 |
| 2026 | 27 |
Layer 1s & Infrastructure led executive exits in 2022, with two
Executive exits CryptoLately has verified in 2022, by the sector of the company
- Layer 1s & Infrastructure: 2
- Stablecoins & Payments, Bitcoin & Mining, Wallets & Consumer Apps, Capital Markets & Treasury, Trading Venues & Brokerage
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Layer 1s & Infrastructure | 2 |
| Stablecoins & Payments | 1 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 1 |
| Wallets & Consumer Apps | 1 |
| Capital Markets & Treasury | 1 |
| Trading Venues & Brokerage | 1 |
The move
CoinDesk reported that ENS community delegates voted to remove Millegan as a steward over a tweet he posted in 2016 that had recently resurfaced2. The outlet quoted the tweet directly: “homosexual acts are evil. Transgenderism doesn't exist. Abortion is murder. Contraception is perversion. So is masturbation and porn.” Millegan skipped an apology and cited his religious beliefs when he addressed the tweet on Discord, CoinDesk reported.
Johnson's statement on X gave the reasoning for the separate decision to end Millegan's paid role. “Brantly has been a valued team member of TNL for the past three years. However, as a team we felt that his position with TNL is no longer tenable,” Johnson said12. He added a second line in the same thread. “Many of you were hurt by Brantly's comments over the past 24 hours, and we strongly believe that ENS should be an inclusive community. Going forward we'll continue to do everything we can to ensure that remains the case.”
CoinDesk found a split among delegates. One delegate, writing under the name "victorstark," argued in the discussion thread that Millegan "deserves to be here" because he stood by his words rather than apologizing2. Johnson left CoinDesk's request for comment unanswered, the outlet reported.
ENS before and after the vote
Users rely on ENS to point a readable .eth name to a wallet address. ENS counted more than 675,000 registered .eth domain names at the time of the vote, CoinDesk reported2. Millegan described that function to CoinDesk back in 2020. “Practically, it means that you can have a name that you own, that has all the decentralization and censorship resistance and programmability of Ethereum,” he said. February 7, 2022, closed out two separate roles at once. Delegates had stripped his steward title over the weekend. True Names Limited ended his paid contract as director of operations that same Monday1.
What came next
Millegan returned to the ENS ecosystem in a paid role before he left it again. By mid-2026 he held the title of director of operations at ENS Labs, and he ran ethid.org, an identity services firm serving the ENS DAO, Cryptopolitan reported3. He announced on X on July 4, 2026, that he would resign from ENS Labs and wind down ethid.org, citing "given recent events and other reasons" as his only stated reason, Cryptopolitan reported. Cryptopolitan tied the exit to a fight inside ENS over a plan to shift treasury and grant management to the ENS Foundation, parts of which Millegan had opposed in public.
Sources
- Nick Johnson, "nick.eth on X," X, February 7, 2022, https://x.com/nicksdjohnson/status/1490581937375027202
- Sam Reynolds, "Ethereum Name Service Removes Core Team Member Brantly Millegan Over 2016 Tweet," CoinDesk, February 7, 2022, https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/02/07/ethereum-name-service-removes-brantly-millegan-as-steward-over-2016-tweet
- Micah Abiodun, "Brantly Millegan leaves ENS and winds down ethid.org amid governance upheaval," Cryptopolitan, July 4, 2026, https://www.cryptopolitan.com/brantly-millegan-leaves-ens-and-winds-down-ethid-org-amid-governance-upheaval/