Introducing the Local Nodes Framework

General
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Hello everyone,

A brief introduction, as this is my first post on Scroll’s Governance Forum — I’m Juan Molina, Community Lead at Up Labs. Over the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of helping build and grow the Scroll community, from the early testnet days through all of Scroll’s major milestones. I’ve worked closely with the Scroll Foundation on the Local Nodes initiative, helping design a program that we believe will drive meaningful growth and empower key regions around the world. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to connect, learn more about my work, or dive deeper into the Local Nodes program.

First off, I’d like to thank all the delegates and community members who’ve contributed their time and energy to proposals and discussions so far. Your efforts have laid the foundation for what we hope will be a thriving Local Nodes program. Today, I’m excited to share a working version of the Local Nodes Framework — a tool we believe will help align our shared goals and ensure the program’s long-term success.

While this is not a final version, it provides a clear structure for anyone interested in launching a Local Node to begin working on their proposals. We welcome feedback and suggestions from the community, and we’re looking forward to iterating on this together.

Read the full Framework here.

Purpose of the Local Nodes Initiative

Local Nodes are envisioned as hyper-local operational arms of Scroll, focused not just on general dev onboarding, but specifically on:

  • Sourcing and nurturing founders and high-quality builders
  • Preparing these builders for Scroll Open
  • Deepening governance participation and ecosystem growth at the local level

This initiative aligns directly with Up Labs’ core objective: identifying and supporting impactful founders globally.

Proposal Guidelines

We encourage all interested community members to review the framework and begin working on their proposals for the upcoming May voting cycle. A few important considerations:

  • Initial proposals should cover a term of up to 3 months
  • Requested budgets should remain under $30,000, unless a larger amount is strongly justified
  • Target: Publish proposals on the forum with sufficient time for community feedback ahead of the May vote

Regional Evaluation Requirement

To ensure focus and feasibility, most regions will first go through a Regional Evaluation stage, which includes key questions on Web3 adoption, regulatory landscape, and local leadership.

However, the four priority regions identified by the Scroll Foundation — Malaysia, Korea, Brazil, and Kenya — are exempt from this initial step. Their Regional Evaluations will be posted after their Local Node Proposals have been finalized and submitted.

Timeline to Keep in Mind

To be included in the May voting cycle, we encourage:

  • Regional Evaluation proposals (if required) to be posted by early April
  • Full Local Node proposals to be drafted and shared for feedback by late April

Let’s build strong, localized communities that meaningfully contribute to Scroll’s global mission. We look forward to seeing your ideas — and shaping this together.

:link: Local Nodes Framework - Google Docs

To all delegates and interested individuals, please review the framework and share your thoughts! Your input is critical as we fine-tune this initiative and move toward proposal co-design. Feel free to drop questions, suggestions, or early draft proposals in the thread below!

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Thanks @Juansito for sharing the update. The idea is, basically, that people can suggest opening a local node according to this framework (in addition to the focus areas that were already identified)? Is there a max. number of local nodes or budget?
Generally, the concept of fostering regional hubs is very reasonable, and I support the regional evaluation requirements as well as creating a local node committee.

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Hey there @bitblondy, we haven’t scoped out a max number of nodes, we do expect to keep an initial controlled approached through the Regional Evaluation process of the new Local Nodes being proposed. We hope that we can get the priority 4 regions up and running by the end of the year, and we are aware of a few proposals being worked on by additional regions that would also be great to bring on board. It is important to mention that the DAO will have the final say on each region’s proposal at the end of the day.

Thanks for chiming in on this.

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Proxy supports the Local Nodes Framework and sees it as a promising model for activating grassroots builder communities around Scroll. One aspect that could be improved though is implementing milestone-based disbursements to help align incentives and promote accountability. Within the proposed $30K, 3-month framework, we suggest disbursing funds in three tranches tied to specific deliverables:

  • (1) an initial milestone (e.g. 1/3rd of requested budget, maximum of $10K) upon recruiting at least 3-5 credible early-stage founders or teams and outlining a localized strategy for ecosystem engagement;
  • (2) a second tranche (e.g. $10K) upon running a founder support program or event series that includes technical or go-to-market prep aligned with Scroll Open timelines;
  • and (3) a final tranche (e.g. $10K) based on post-program outcomes, such as active participation in governance discussions or reporting on regional ecosystem impact.

These aren’t rigid guidelines, but just suggestions to get the ball rolling. Thanks for this post @Juansito

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Hello Juan!

First of all. thanks for the hard work putting this together.

I find it really comprehensive and I feel that this structure will provide clarity in terms of what the expectations are from the foundation side.

My only comment / question would be: Is there any type of grading system when it comes to the key evaluation factors in terms of is any one of them any more relevant than the other?

For example in LATAM, I feel that a lot of countries would be interested in having a local node program like the ones we are proposing for MX, AR and BZ but not every interested country is going to be able to fully A+ grade when it comes to all key factors.

In that sense we could end up with a candidate who’s able to provide most of what we are asking requering but for example due to things like size of the country or level of adoption maybe is not going to be able to fulfill things having a CEX or a large number of crypto-friendly businesses.

Luis Cedeño
ETH TGU

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Hello, I did go through the document and I liked how well thought it is. I also like that there is a means of assessing progress, which is useful when it comes to things like this.

The framework is comprehensive and well-aligned with the Scroll DAO’s mission of decentralizing community engagement.

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Thanks for the thoughtful suggestion, @kevinknielsen — I think this is a strong addition. Milestone-based disbursements can definitely help reinforce accountability and outcome-driven execution, especially as we start rolling out the first Local Nodes.

I’ll make sure this is highlighted in the guidance for upcoming proposals, and we can absolutely look at integrating it into a future version of the framework as we learn more from early implementations.

Appreciate your support and input!

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Thanks so much for the thoughtful feedback, Luis — really appreciate it!

To your question: for now, the Regional Evaluation process will remain under the discretion of the Scroll Foundation, with the intent of ensuring that the regions we approve are strongly aligned with our overarching goal — sourcing and supporting founders in meaningful, localized ways.

While drafting this framework, we actually debated quite a bit about whether to implement a more defined rubric. But ultimately, we felt that any scoring system could easily become too rigid or subjective at this early stage. So for now, it will rely on our internal criteria and judgment. That said, as the program matures and we begin to see Local Nodes in action, we hope to establish a Local Node Committee that can take on the role of reviewing new regions — and by then, we expect to have a more robust and transparent rubric to support that process.

As for LATAM — I completely agree. It’s an incredibly rich region with unique strengths and community dynamics in countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. While they share certain traits, each one also presents very different levels of adoption, community structure, and culture — which leads to distinct, valuable approaches to a Local Node.

Now, regarding other LATAM countries: this is a great conversation to have, and I think it will evolve as we see the first few Local Nodes get off the ground. Once we have more clarity on how they operate and deliver value, we can start exploring ways to support and uplift smaller or adjacent regions — perhaps through sub-node partnerships or regional collaborations. But in this initial phase, our priority is to focus, launch, and refine the model through the most immediately promising proposals.

Would love to hear more of your thoughts on how this could look in the future — and again, really appreciate you engaging with this!

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Congratulations @Juansito and team on all the work in designing this proposal. It clearly outlines the path to follow.
I like the idea of going through a two-step process. In that way the risk of wasting time-to-draft is minimized as proposers need to first be approved to make a compelling initiative for their region.

The actions to ensure alignment and progress tracking are on point and the idea of having a Local Node Committee talks also about decentralization. Celo recently started something similar for its regional DAOs.

The Event in a Box has been already developed by ReFi Spring. We should try to get it, as it was battle-tested already for the web3 environment. I’ve asked about it, will let everyone know when am answered.

As a comment to @kevinknielsen. I support the idea of having a milestone-based approach. However, if not properly executed it will delay payments and operations. To optimize it a solution could be making use of the SuperFluid protocol so that $ is streamed by second and could be stopped whenever the DAO sees that the milestones are not reached or need to make corrections. That way there’s no time lost in distributing each payment based on the milestones.

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Here it is: ReFi Spring Toolkit - a template for organizing web3 regen events

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Thanks @HumbertoBesso, agree it’s a balancing act. @Juansito We’re definitely in support of using an optimistic payment approach with a streaming solutions like Superfluid to reduce ops friction and make funding more responsive. The key will be building in clear and objective criteria for stopping or adjusting streams, so it’s not just a vibe check from the DAO but tied to real signals of traction or delivery.

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