Proposal: Evolving Scroll’s Focus Areas Into a Structured Long-Term Strategy

[unite]

I’ve been following the Ecosystem Growth Council updates closely, and I appreciate the clarity around defining the four focus areas. However, I believe we now have an opportunity to turn these categories into a true long-term roadmap.

At the moment, the focus areas are directional, but they are not yet strategic in the operational sense. There is no indication of how long these priorities will remain in place, how heavily each one should be supported relative to the others, or how different councils should sequence execution over time. Without defined time horizons or allocation weightings, STRATEGY risks becoming intention rather than governance making it hard for founders to plan, and equally hard for councils to be evaluated on outcomes.

To solve this, I propose that Scroll converts the current focus areas into a three-to-five-year strategic plan, where each year includes a deliberate distribution of support across the verticals. For example, in the early phase, builder and founder support could intentionally receive the largest share: something in the 30–35% range, to rapidly widen the pipeline of teams building on Scroll. Liquidity and economic infrastructure could then scale progressively from around 25% in Year 1 toward 30–35% in later years as ecosystem activity increases. Community and local ecosystem growth could hold steady at roughly 20% across cycles to maintain grassroots expansion, while user retention and growth experiments remain a consistent 15% to drive recurring engagement. A small reserve perhaps 5% each cycle would remain flexible for emergent opportunities.

The exact numbers are less important than the structure. The goal is not to lock the DAO into rigid spending targets, but to define a long-term intention that councils execute against rather than reinterpret each term. Annual reviews could still adjust the weightings based on performance, or trends, but without deviating from the agreed long-term direction.

This kind of framework is how other ecosystems achieve sustained compounding impact: define the mission for years, then optimize execution annually.

If this direction aligns with where Scroll intends to go, I’m happy to formalize it further or collaborate with others on a draft that could be tested via community signaling.

[natalie]

Hi Unite,

Nice to meet you online! I’m Natalie, who, along with @jashar (who posted this forum post), holds a seat on the EGC.

Thanks for the thoughtful post. It’s good to see we are aligned on the big picture, and the next step is really about how we order and pace the priorities.

From the EGC side, we removed rigid budget allocations to stay flexible and adjust based on supply and demand. To move toward a proper strategy, we agree that we need to quantify and set time-bound goals.

We could imagine a more sequential approach as you mentioned. With only three focus areas (founders, users, liquidity) and given how tightly users and liquidity are connected, we shouldn’t fully separate them. Very long cycles are risky in such a fast-moving space, so one idea we have discussed is shorter focus periods, for example, around 6 months. In practice, this could mean starting with a priority on founders + users, while keeping liquidity closely tied in. At the same time, we also recognize that a lot is still being defined within Labs and Open Economy, so it is too early to commit to fixed timeframes. For now, we see value in staying dynamic, keeping all three areas open, and then revisiting the idea of cycles and SMART goals once there is more clarity.

As for priorities, we have already integrated the feedback from our forum post on strategic direction and focus areas. Our next step is to define evaluation criteria. We see the EGC, together with Scroll Labs and the community, co-leading the process of shaping a strategy once we have initial feedback from on the ground.

Looking forward to hearing further thoughts.

All the best,

Natalie & the EGC

[unite]

Hi @natalie

Thank you again for the clarity and thoughtfulness of your response. I appreciate how deliberately you’ve framed the importance of staying flexible, especially as the relationship between Labs, Open Economy, and the DAO continues to evolve. That flexibility is vital in such a fast-moving ecosystem.

That said, I think we now have a unique opportunity to take this a step further by aligning flexibility within a shared long-term framework.

Right now, each governing entity (Labs, Open Economy, EGC, and the Community Council) operates with its own evolving priorities. That’s natural in the early stages. But if each body continues to redefine direction every term or cycle, we risk spending more time reinterpreting the mission than executing it. Over time, this can lead to what I’d call “strategic drift,” where goals shift not because the vision changed, but because there wasn’t a shared baseline to guide everyone.

To avoid that, I’d suggest that each body, Labs, Open Economy, and the Councils, define their 3–5 year goal frameworks in their own domains and then come together to turn those into a coherent, ecosystem-wide Strategic Plan.

This doesn’t mean fixed budgets or rigid roadmaps. It means:

• Labs articulates its long-term technical and product development goals.
• Open Economy defines its vision for sustainability, token design, and treasury growth.
• The EGC translates both into ecosystem growth objectives (founders, users, liquidity).
• The Community Council anchors local expansion and engagement.

Once these 3–5 year anchors exist, the EGC’s 3–6 month+ cycles can become truly strategic sprints , each one knowing how its short-term milestones fit into the bigger, ecosystem-wide vision.

This kind of structure brings several key benefits:

• Continuity: Every council builds upon the last, rather than starting from scratch.
• Clarity: Founders, investors, and partners can plan around stable long-term intentions.
• Speed: Decision-making becomes faster because priorities are pre-aligned — only tactics shift, not direction.
• Accountability: Each entity can be evaluated against its measurable goals and contribution to shared outcomes.

It also balances risk and benefit on both sides:

• For Scroll and the DAO, it reduces the danger of fragmentation, inconsistent messaging, and misaligned funding cycles.
• For founders and builders, it reduces uncertainty, ensuring they can grow within a predictable, transparent support structure.
• The only real “risk” to flexibility is bureaucratic slowdown, but the hybrid model solves that by keeping strategy fixed and execution dynamic.

Even Facebook, Ethereum, and other major ecosystems evolved their missions over time, but they did so through anchored intentions, not constant resets. The 3–5 year frame is simply a guiding compass that councils can adapt and refine, ensuring Scroll moves in one direction with many creative paths.

In short:

Vision defines the purpose.
Strategic goals define the outcomes.
Councils execute flexibly within that compass.

That’s how flexibility and focus can truly reinforce each other.

Here each entity contributes its 3–5 year priorities, and the EGC synthesizes them into a unified long-term ecosystem strategy that still allows fast adaptation within each term.

In a fast-moving ecosystem like ours, flexibility is essential, but flexibility without measurable goals can easily become motion without progress.
A clear, evolving set of strategic goals gives every contributor, from builders to council members, a shared understanding of what success looks like and how to get there.

I really want to hear your thoughts on this.

Warm regards.

[natalie]

Thanks, @unite ! We appreciate the thought and structure you’ve put into this. From the EGC side, we feel we’ve contributed a clear starting point with the strategic direction, and we are now putting them into action. Once the roles of the DAO, the councils, and Labs are clearer, we’ll be in a better position to tackle multi‑year frameworks and goals.

All the best!