Update on how we’re evolving the Scroll DAO

General
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Addressing community concerns

First and foremost, we’d like to address concerns from our community and partners regarding the safety of funds and the stability of the protocol following the recent announcement of the Scroll DAO restructuring.

There are no protocol-level risks associated with these changes, and user funds remain completely secure, exactly as they were before.

Since its launch nearly 11 months ago, the Scroll DAO has not managed user funds and Protocol Upgrades will continue to be coordinated with the DAO and executed by our Security Council.

This evolution reflects our commitment to responsible growth while maintaining the experimental spirit that makes governance valuable.

Why we’re making this change

Scroll is entering an exciting phase of accelerated growth. Products like ether.fi Cash are finding strong product-market fit, Open Economy is attracting founders from around the world, and new initiatives are preparing to launch (stay tuned for next Monday!). These developments validate that our growth strategy is gaining real momentum.

In parallel, our governance team has been driving a bold experiment in decentralization, with growing participation from high-quality delegates who have added real value to the DAO. However, we must acknowledge a fundamental tension: DAO processes naturally move slower than the commercial speed of the market, creating friction between thoughtful deliberation and the urgency required to scale effectively.

Scroll’s rapid growth demands faster alignment, efficiency, and resource allocation than current DAO processes allow.

For this reason, we are evolving, not disbanding, the DAO. No governance model is perfect, but our commitment is to continue experimenting with different approaches that strike the right balance between decentralization and the need for alignment, efficiency, and effective resource allocation.

This is ultimately what guided our decision to revamp the governance process.

The vision: Scroll as One

We have always been committed to safeguarding and driving the growth of Scroll, both as a community and as a protocol. With this governance revamp, our goal is to create a DAO environment anchored in clear mandates and stronger alignment with Scroll’s vision.

Key structural changes we propose:

  1. Foundation oversight with operational autonomy: The DAO will report to the Foundation. This will provide greater visibility into DAO activities and allow delegates and Councils to work more closely with Foundation and Labs, gaining access to operating context and joining syncs when appropriate. The Foundation will offer input and retain veto authority when necessary, while preserving meaningful roles for delegates.

  2. Strategic resource allocation: The DAO treasury will be determined and allocated annually or biannually, ensuring resources are used strategically and efficiently.

  3. Improved operational independence: The Foundation will step back from daily operations of the DAO. Instead, it will provide oversight through the Execution Council, ensuring proposals remain aligned with Scroll’s direction, while retaining veto authority if required.

With these clearer mandates, the DAO will gain more room to experiment and govern with clarity, while keeping Scroll’s growth at the center.

As a result, we’re aiming for the structure to bring:

  • A governance environment guided by clearer Foundation mandates
    • Councils work closer with the team for more context and sync
    • Foundation retains the ability to veto proposals
  • Limited treasury with disciplined annual or biannual budgets
  • DAO experimentation within a more autonomous, yet focused environment
    • Execution Council becomes the operating arm of the DAO
    • Foundation role focused on oversight and strategic guidance
  • An organization structure that keeps everyone focused on scaling Scroll.

Achieving the vision: Implementation timeline

Immediate actions:

  • We will recruit the Governance Council in the coming days and collaborate with them on designing a new constitution and governance model. This will be drafted into a proposal for DAO feedback and a vote.
    Our aim is to have the new structure ready no later than the January 1, 2026 voting cycle.
  • We plan to meet with as many delegates as possible on a one-on-one basis to gather feedback and provide context, ensuring their perspectives shape the process directly.
  • We see Devconnect as a valuable opportunity to host a dedicated space to share progress on the new structure, present growth priorities, and gather community input.
  • Until the new governance structure is in place, the Foundation will not endorse new proposals other than Protocol Upgrades submitted by the Up Labs team to ensure the security of the protocol.
  • Ongoing proposals will continue to be honored if they align with Scroll’s current growth priorities. A detailed breakdown of how each proposal will be handled will follow in the next section.
  • Ultimately, all changes will be submitted to a DAO vote for approval, reinforcing that this evolution is transparent and shaped with community participation.
  • The Community Team will be acting as POC for the DAO during this transition phase.

Handling existing proposals

We’re committed to honoring ongoing proposals that align with Scroll’s current growth priorities:

1. Scroll DAO Delegate Accelerator Program

  • The Delegate Accelerator Program will continue strengthening and diversifying the delegate base. The Scroll Foundation will support by open-sourcing the program’s materials.

2. Ecosystem Growth Council

  • The Ecosystem Growth Council’s role will become clearer in the coming weeks, positioning it to support the successful launch and adoption of key products. The council should continue operating within the timeline and budget defined in its proposal.

3. Community Council

  • The Community Council will carry forward its mission of advancing the Local Nodes initiative and community grant programs. With stronger alignment from the Foundation, these efforts are expected to deliver significant impact in the months ahead. The council should continue operating within its approved timeline and budget.

4. Better DAO Decisions & Aligned Incentives (Carroll Mechanisms Research)

  • We will work closely with stakeholders on this proposal to ensure its design and execution align with the new governance vision. Initial investment commitments are in the process of being fulfilled.

5. Security Subsidy Program for Scroll Builders

  • We remain committed to the Security Subsidy Program and will ensure it receives the resources and oversight needed to protect builders and strengthen security across the ecosystem.

6. Governance Council

  • The Governance Council will focus on supporting the Scroll Foundation in drafting a new proposal for an updated DAO Constitution, more closely aligned with Scroll’s long-term vision. Recruitment for this program will begin in the coming days.

7. Governance Contribution Recognition

  • We will continue to honor the Governance Contribution Recognition program, reinforcing the importance of delegates’ contributions as we move into this new phase. The Scroll Foundation and the GCR working group will collaborate to determine the best execution path for the second phase of the proposal covering the September–December participation cycle.

8. DAO Treasury Management

  • We will meet with Avantgarde, the selected provider, to align on priorities and assess the feasibility of their services within the current context.

Moving forward together

We recognize this change involves challenges and trade-offs. Evolving governance structures is never simple. However, it is a necessary step if we want to keep pace with the market, safeguard the health of our ecosystem, and position Scroll for long-term success.

Our commitment is to approach this evolution transparently and collaboratively, working closely with our delegates and community. By aligning around a shared vision, we can strengthen governance as a tool for experimentation while ensuring Scroll remains focused on growth, resilience, and impact.

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Thank you @juansito for this post.

Am glad the Foundation took the advice of turning the challenge faced into a forum post that looks for the community (and delegates) feedback and approval. It still does not address clarity on the future of the DAO, but I’m sure things will start unfolding through several conversations.

Also, great to know that:

  • new hires will be onboarded soon regarding the governance council, which is key for our collective strategy. - the local nodes are still an active strategy on the map. The local nodes are key for bringing adoption and gaining speed and growth.
  • all proposals are being honored.

Looking forward to continuing the conversation and co-working with others to surf challenges together.

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Sharing this week’s Gov Call recording.

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Thanks for this post. I’m glad to see this being announced formally.

A few comments

Web3 folks have seen many VERY poorly designed DAOs, and that often leads them to the conclusion that “DAO processes naturally move slower”, reasonable given the abundance of poor practices, but a problem of organisation design, not a problem of DAOs per se. Let me try to unpack it:
Most DAOs start by setting up not an executive team (CMO, CFO, Product, CPO, etc) but by setting the equivalent of a company board. Now, imagine how fast the company would move if only had a board and they had to decide on things like whether the website CTA button should be on the left or the right, the background colour blue or purple-ish. The board would get quickly overwhelmed as it’s not designed to make operational decisions but to provide oversight. The distinction I make here is one between Meta Governance (setting up the rules and structure) and Operational Governance (execution).

(Note that corporations execute as badly as DAOs when poorly designed).

Confusing MetaGov and OpsGov leads to fundamentally the wrong conclusions on whether DAOs are fast/slow, good at executing or not, etc. For example, in the case of Scroll DAO, we have different things happening, but let me contrast two of them:

  • selection of treasury management providers directly with the DAO delegates reviewing proposals
  • appointment of a growth committee with a mandate and budget
    The selection of a treasury management provider is an Ops decision being made by the delegates directly, which thus feels slow and ineffective compared to what we’d expect. The key is the word expectation, as we’re benchmarking this against an Ops process (by a company’s executive), as that intuitively makes sense.
    In contrast, the design and appointment of a committee can feel better, as the collective input and feedback of delegates improved the design. That feeling comes from naturally benchmarking that process with other MetaGov processes, and hence, it doesn’t feel too slow necessarily. The art is finding the right scope of decisions to make.

The gov team had been doing well in setting up multiple teams to execute on key workstreams, i.e. setting up OpsGov capacity. I have some reservations about aspects of the designs, but these councils are viable and had they been given at least a couple of weeks to start operating, we’d likely see some results. Note that an executive in a corporation wouldn’t be expected to be doing a lot before 1-2 months or longer, depending on the complexity of the role!. The problem was mismatched expectations from the start as the Scroll DAO first set up MetaGov capacity and only after OpsCapacity, while it seems that Labs was expecting (unconciously) that there would be OpsGov capacity from the get-go.

Now, someone could well say:
”**ok sure, DAOs can setup Ops capacity too, but why not do everything by centralised teams we’re more familiar with? Why go through all the trouble?”

Trying to operate a DAO is a poor choice, if not because DAOs are well-suited for something corporations aren’t: operating as platforms.**
By platform I mean an organisational structure designed to leverage resources from the ecosystem (know-how, talent, capital, networks, etc) and externalise innovation risk. That is, open innovation, joint ventures with the ecosystem, etc. The investment in Negation Game is an example of this approach, where the DAO was able to get a valuation 50% lower than a reputable VC would have on a venture with a massive TAM and a strong founder. (there seems to be some confusion about seeing the negation game as a governance expense when it’s an investment into a venture, AND that venture benefits from having Scroll as a design partner).

I recently wrote a bit more about this here, but the key point is that DAOs can be designed to do 5x what a centralised team can. However, that requires a bit of time to let teams onboard and learning from organisations doing it well already, instead of copying from other dysfunctional DAOs or throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

So I’m glad you’re opening space for conversation! You had us all very worried for a second :slight_smile:

Isn’t this what was already happening? I don’t understand the change here.

I understand this as “holding a shorter leash” which in principle I have no issue with, given the early stage of the DAO, problems with delegate systems by token holders from airdrops, etc.
In practice, if you’re going to be dictating to the DAO exactly what to do and giving it only short-term budgets for execution, there’s a significant risk of setting up the DAO for failure unless the approach focuses on evolving the DAO towards a platform design. Without the roadmap for platform capabilities, probably best to close down the DAO, give those resources to a couple of executives or project managers, and avoid the disappointment.
Thankfully, there are options to take this to a happy path.

Although Scroll can be a powerful design partner for Negation Game, in the same way that campus companies are not forced to adapt their roadmap to fit Scroll team priorities, the Negation Game should be recognised as an investment into a venture. Failing to honour the sprit of the agreement would set a terrible reputation for Scroll, undoing all the work here.
So rather than a minority investor (Scroll) aiming to dictate the product roadmap of a startup, I’d suggest finding ways to support the startups Scroll invests in on their chosen path (acting as a platform).
Note the Negation Game team also has strong governance expertise and I can’t speak on their behalf (I’m a passionate advocate not part of the team), but I understand @connormcmk has kindly offered to advise Scroll on governance.

These processes are hard and require learning and dealing with uncertainty, so this intention is most appreciated!

I’d suggest more work is needed here but we can get there.

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Thank you for the post, Juansito.

First and foremost, we want to emphasize that blockful is fully committed and available to support the continuation of the important work Scroll has already undertaken.

We recognize the value of the progress made so far and are ready to contribute to strengthening and advancing this trajectory with dedication and professionalism.

However, we have a few considerations regarding what you shared.

This movement would not have been blocked by the DAO. The DAO could have continued its processes since the Foundation’s role has been, and still is, dominant in most cases, including proposal submissions. That is why we believe that the right path was not to shift the governance processes but to continue them and present these growth initiatives to the DAO while the Foundation still plays its role.

As you mentioned in your post, this shows how DAO processes could, and still can, run with less friction. Aragon itself even offered support. Scroll DAO had (or still has?) highly talented delegates who operate with precision on growth and many other areas across different DAOs. Mind that, we also tried to contribute on several fronts and often could not move forward.

What we could have done better was to make it clearer to delegates:

  1. That the focus was growth and specify where exactly we could contribute (beyond what we were already doing)

  2. That the Foundation do not “pivot” a DAO in this way and at this speed.

This raises serious risks and questions. The justification of Foundation autonomy is not viable, because the Foundation has always had significant operational autonomy. This sets a precedent that could discourage qualified delegates from engaging if Scroll wants to resume the path of decentralization. It also brings doubts about the utility of the token, which once carried weight in governance and, importantly, was largely concentrated in the hands of major holders who acted as delegators.

In conclusion:

  1. The Foundation already exercises autonomy (not only operationally).

  2. I believe delegates still do not fully understand the “whys” and implications, and this may harm both the token and Scroll’s overall reputation.

blockful is fully available to support Scroll on this path with our team’s expertise in technical matters, growth, delegation, and of course governance security, always with a focus on building a sustainable and resilient governance framework for the future.

I hope to see soon a shared vision.

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Thank you for the update on Scroll’s governance evolution. The structure you outlined—aligned oversight with operational autonomy and focused treasury allocation—maps well to our product direction at Tally. I wanted to reach out and start the conversation about how we can support.

Relevant Experience

Tally has supported similar transitions where DAOs need to balance speed with oversight. Your model of scoped council authorities with Foundation veto rights is something our platform handles well.

We provide end-to-end infrastructure — from committee governance and voting interfaces to staking and treasury modules — designed to help protocols launch and scale.

  • Over $1 billion in treasury value has been transferred via on Tally.

  • Tally supports more than 500 protocols including the many of the largest protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem (e.g. Arbitrum, Wormhole, zkSync, Uniswap, ENS, Compound, EigenLayer). Protocols with a combined $81 billion+ in TVL use Tally. More than 7,000 proposals have been created on Tally.

Potential Areas of Support

Based on your outlined changes:

  • Council Infrastructure: Dashboards and tools for your Execution Council and other councils to operate within their defined mandates

  • Treasury Management: Systems that support your allocation model with proper transparency

  • Governance Integration: Tools that let councils work, with Foundation veto ability and community transparency.

Next Steps

Your January 2026 timeline gives us room to design something that fits your specific needs rather than adapting existing tools. We’re interested in understanding how your new structure will work in practice.

If you’re open to it, we’d like to connect with your working groups and participate in Devconnect discussions as you design the new framework. Happy to start with informal conversations about whether there’s a fit.

Best,

Tyler Bench
Head of Growth, Tally

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First of all, I want to emphasize the exceptional work that @eugene and @Jamilya have done in building this DAO from scratch. They followed the idea of progressive decentralization and built the DAO very close to the community. Most importantly, they attracted a variety of governance experts and made this a welcoming place for everybody.

Many DAOs face governance challenges, but I did not experience these in Scroll. I also believe good governance is a major factor in the highly competitive L2 landscape. My concern is that the current course taken by Labs risks undermining this earlier work and the advantage Scroll had compared to other DAOs. Hence, I remain sceptical about this restructuring.

That said, this update feels more measured than expected, especially compared to the earlier narrative around “decentralization minimization” and shutting down the DAO. It is positive that at least earlier proposals are being executed, and that changes will be openly discussed and voted on (after delegate pushback).

  • My main open question is still the need for such a course of action. As @blockful pointed out, streamlining operations and focusing on growth is something the DAO definitely supports.

  • The efficiency argument—that governance slows down growth—is often used to bypass community involvement. While it is valid to some extent, I see it more as a misunderstanding of governance (as @danielo highlighted). Pausing the DAO for three months also is arbitrary to this idea.

  • On the foundation oversight: Councils already include Labs members and work closely with the Foundation, and governance admins must approve and post every proposal. So in practice, there currently is no decisions or spending from treasury without foundation control. What’s the major change there?

Overall, this update leaves many questions unanswered and puts the DAO in an unclear state until at least next year.

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Thank you for posting this update, @Juansito. It is very important to have visibility on the next steps after all the discussions over the past weeks.

We are committed to supporting Scroll’s next governance phase, valuing the progress made and contributing with professionalism and long-term dedication.

We highlight some especially positive points:

  • The assurance that there are no immediate protocol risks, which preserves the security of SCR and DAO assets.
  • The balance between operational autonomy (through a more active Execution Council) and the strategic oversight of the Foundation, with veto power limited to specific situations, preserving decentralization without losing efficiency.
  • The proposal for longer funding cycles, enabling greater predictability, budgetary discipline, and sustainable planning.
  • The respect for initiatives already in progress, ensuring that proposals aligned with growth priorities continue to receive support.
  • The openness to dialogue with delegates, reinforcing transparency and inclusion of diverse perspectives in the transition.

As next steps, we believe it is essential to:

  • Clearly define the criteria for exercising veto power, avoiding future ambiguities.
  • Establish timelines, goals, and concrete deliverables for the new councils and mandates, ensuring transparent accountability.
  • Maintain continuous community feedback channels, ensuring trust and alignment during implementation.

We believe this proposal marks an important step forward in making the Scroll DAO more efficient, responsive, and prepared to scale without compromising the principles of decentralization.

Modular Crypto is fully available to contribute actively to this new governance approach, helping implement it in practice and ensuring the community remains connected throughout the process.

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Hello,

thanks a lot for the update in written and for having already taken into account some of the advice delegates shared with you. I have a good feeling that there is a path forward. I deeply regret that it means that @eugene and @Jamilya are not part of it as they are the best ever Gov Team I have met in my Web3 journey.

Happy to have such a call. What is the best way to organize? Telegram?

This is key to design the path forward and leverage this council to design the next evolution of the DAO which reconcile your vision and the approach of the delegates and broader community.

Happy to continue this discussion

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GM!

Thanks @Juansito & Raza for the thoughtful update and for being transparent about the direction Scroll is taking. :sparkles:

To help myself think through the nuances of this evolution, I tried running a Negation Game: a way to explore both pro and con arguments to test the assumptions behind this post.
(cc. @bitblondy @connormcmk)

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https://scroll.negationgame.com/s/scroll/rationale/5SDfdIY_WRHNW1rVGtCpy?published=true

It’s helped me appreciate the trade-offs here, but also raised a few reflections I wanted to share in case they’re helpful during the co-design process.

For example, many of the structural elements announced here (e.g. Foundation oversight, the Execution Council, limited treasury budgets, community Councils, veto powers) already existed under the previous Constitution.

So rather than a full “change,” this seems more like a reframing…

Which invites the questions:

  • What exactly is changing, and what problem is this trying to solve that wasn’t solvable under the previous model?

  • Is the root issue governance structure, or is it more about implementation friction, incentive design, and/or coordination gaps between teams and token holders?

  • Is it correct to assume that decentralization was the blocker to faster execution?

Some other big themes I believe we’ll need to define in this process:

  • What does autonomy mean in this new governance setup (for Councils, for delegates, for token holders)?

  • What safeguards and feedback loops will ensure that “alignment” doesn’t crowd out dissent or novel thinking?

  • What role does the wider community play and how can we preserve Scroll’s experimental spirit through new mechanisms?

Of course, I don’t think we can (or should) expect these questions to be answered only by the Foundation/Labs. Rather, we need shared processes to arrive at better answers together.

That said, I appreciate all the care being put by Scroll leadership into this transition (and remain attentive to any clarification you may have). :folded_hands:

I’m just hoping these questions serve as helpful inputs as we collectively design what comes next.

:seedling:

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Hello! Do you have more information about this initiative?

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Glad to see clarity and next steps for the DAO going forward. I’d like to thank @eugene and the current gov team for steering the ship wonderfully so far. As @danielo pointed out, there seems to have been unclear expectation settings which landed the DAO in this place. Going forward, I hope that all stakeholders can have aligned expectations so that we can avoid this situation again in the future. That being said, we as @DAOplomats are happy to support this transition and contribute to the new iteration of the DAO.

Will this commitment be part of the DAO vote which will set into action this transition?

I support including this clarity in the next iteration of the DAO.

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We appreciate you clarifying the situation, as at times like this, people tend to make assumptions and unintentionally create an atmosphere of tension.

We want the best for the DAO and hope that this change is for the better. We look forward to further updates.

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We appreciate you @Juansito for sharing this update and helping ensure transparency with the community. We’ve been following the discussion closely, and many of the questions we had have already been raised thoughtfully by fellow delegates. While there are still nuances to unpack around these changes, we want to reaffirm our commitment to actively contributing to Scroll.

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This announcement caught the community off-guard. While the Foundation frames it as “evolution,” the timing and unilateral nature of the decision undermines the very participatory governance it claims to preserve. When major governance changes are announced rather than proposed through existing DAO processes, it signals that community input is consultative rather than decisive.

The Data Problem

Perhaps most concerning is the complete absence of empirical justification for these changes. The announcement claims that “DAO processes naturally move slower than commercial speed,” but provides no:

  • Metrics showing how DAO deliberation actually impacted execution

  • Comparative analysis of decision timelines

  • Evidence that governance bottlenecks (rather than technical or market factors) caused missed opportunities

  • Data on user retention issues that might indicate deeper protocol problems

Without this foundation, we’re asked to accept centralization based on assertions rather than analysis.

The User Retention Elephant in the Room

While we’re restructuring governance for “efficiency,” our user retention remains critically low. Products like ether(.)fi Cash may show initial traction, but sustained network usage tells a different story. This suggests our challenges aren’t governance speed—they’re fundamental value proposition and user experience issues that no amount of organizational restructuring will solve.

Focusing on internal governance while users leave the network feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

imagen
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New Users Over Time

A Step Back

The proposed structure represents a regression in decentralization, not progression:

  • Foundation veto power over all decisions

  • Annual treasury allocation controlled by Foundation

  • “Operational autonomy” that exists only within Foundation-defined boundaries

  • Council recruitment managed by Foundation rather than community

This isn’t evolution—it’s reversion to traditional corporate oversight with DAO aesthetics.

The Precedent Problem

Perhaps most troubling is the precedent this sets. If governance can be unilaterally restructured when it becomes “inconvenient” for growth targets, what’s to prevent future reversals whenever community decisions conflict with Foundation priorities?

This creates a fundamental trust deficit: why participate in governance that can be overruled or restructured at will?

A Call for Reflection

Before we accept these changes, we need honest answers:

  • What specific governance decisions actually slowed critical execution?

  • Why wasn’t this proposed through existing DAO processes for community input?

  • How do we address user retention issues that governance restructuring won’t solve?

  • What mechanisms ensure this isn’t permanent Foundation capture disguised as temporary efficiency?

The Scroll community deserves governance evolution that’s evidence-based, community-driven, and genuinely progressive. What we’re being offered falls short on all three counts.

I urge fellow delegates and community members to demand better before we trade our governance voice for promised efficiency that may never materialize.

This analysis is based on my Negation Game rationale which explores this announcement.

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I truly enjoyed the way Scroll DAO handled governance via @eugene and @Jamilya which did an amazing job, I would call it governance excellence, never witnessed anything better in all of my web3 DAO life.

At the same time I honestly believe Scroll is doing the right move here(as much as I personally love DAOs and collective decision making in decentralized contexts, 99% of DAOs have waisted funds playing games, not saying this is the case at Scroll at all- the DAO has been really efficient in spendings and outputs) due to the fact that we have not managed to attract a lot of users, airdrop didn’t create the right network effects, the second airdrop was cancelled and most protocols migrated from Scroll.

Scroll has an opportunity here, you can use the excellent governance processes we have as leverage to gather inputs from experienced people, verify them internally at the foundation and move the ecosystem forward in a sustainable way! This will require both parties, delegates/foundation to cooperate in a way that is pozitive sum to both (3,3).

My rationale is presented in the Negation Game as well

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