Scroll DAO

Scroll DAO is the governance body of Scroll, an Ethereum layer-2 rollup built on zero-knowledge proofs, in which SCR holders and the delegates they choose vote on treasury allocations, funding programmes and changes to the governing documents (Scroll governance docs). In the year from September 2025 the Scroll Foundation put the DAO under its own oversight, proposed dissolving its Security Council and ended most of its paid contributor roles. It now proposes turning Scroll into a permissioned chain, and says SCR holders will vote on that by the end of 2026.

What does Scroll DAO govern?

Treasury allocations, funding programmes such as grants, and social ratifications such as amendments to its governing documents. SCR holders vote directly or delegate their votes, and the DAO sits inside a wider structure with the Scroll Foundation and a Security Council (what is Scroll DAO).

The DAO has never controlled users' funds. Scroll said so in September 2025, nearly 11 months after launch, and added that protocol upgrades were coordinated with the DAO but executed by the Security Council (forum, 18 Sep 2025).

SCR was announced on 8 October 2024 with a supply of 1bn, 15% of it set aside for at least two community airdrops over 18 months. The first airdrop's snapshot was taken on 19 October and claims opened on 22 October 2024 (The Block).

The 2025 restructuring

In September 2025 the delegate Olimpio reported that governance would pause after a run of resignations, including the DAO lead's. Scroll co-founder Haichen Shen said the team was redesigning governance, and head of growth Raza Zaidi called it a pause rather than a stop (The Block, 11 Sep 2025).

Scroll set out the new shape on 18 September 2025, under the line that it was "evolving, not disbanding" the DAO (forum post):

• the DAO reports to the Scroll Foundation, which can veto its decisions where it judges that necessary;
• the treasury is set and allocated once or twice a year rather than proposal by proposal;
• the Foundation steps back from daily operations and oversees the DAO through an Execution Council; and
• a Governance Council would draft an updated constitution, with the new structure targeted at the January 2026 voting cycle (The Block, 19 Sep 2025).

Scroll's stated reason was speed: DAO processes "naturally move slower than the commercial speed of the market".

The Security Council and the April 2026 cuts

On 13 April 2026 Scroll proposed dissolving the Security Council, saying its cost was no longer justified by how often it was used. Admin control of the ScrollOwner, governor and timelock contracts would pass to a Scroll Admin multisig at 0xcca54B0916Cee2186b47E9709BEdcb7041A8F761, a transfer that needed the council's own support and was targeted for the following ten days. Scroll said it would work with stakeholders on a new council structure suited to current market conditions.

The same post ended four DAO contributor roles by 30 April 2026: Marketing Operations, Program Coordination, Accountability Lead and Accountability Operator. A Facilitator role held by SEED LATAM continued through the second quarter, running delegate operations and the DAO's allocation budget, and the Operations and Accountability committees moved to reduced capacity.

Delegates replied that a single Scroll-controlled multisig concentrated control, asked who its signers were and what threshold it used, and asked why the change was not going to an on-chain vote. One delegate wrote that cutting four of five contributor roles "more or less puts the DAO into a dormant state". The thread carries no reply from Scroll to those questions. Compare how other DAOs have unwound their own bodies in council dissolution, and what a council of this kind is for in security councils.

Will SCR holders vote on a permissioned chain?

Scroll says they will. Its September 2026 monthly update describes a turn towards consumer AI products, starting with Compass, an iOS app for travellers previously called PocketPal, and an API that routes requests to AI models. To support that direction the team outlined moving Scroll to a permissioned chain and deploying SCR and the USX stablecoin on Ethereum mainnet, with SCR governing both the chain and USX. The indicative timeline, which the update says is not final:

• mid-November to December 2026: deploy SCR and USX contracts on Ethereum mainnet;
• by the end of 2026: seek a governance vote on the move to a permissioned chain; and
• early 2027: the chain transition itself.

A delegate replied that before designing new roles the DAO needed to know which decisions were reserved for SCR governance and which the Foundation could take alone. Scroll's Jane answered on 22 October that changes directly affecting SCR holders, such as migrating SCR, would go through governance, that the Foundation would run the products and the roadmap, and that the DAO could "gradually develop" into a body providing oversight of major decisions. The DAO's next monthly call is on 29 October 2026 (forum).

Scroll is one of several L2 network DAOs the wiki tracks, alongside Arbitrum, the Optimism Collective and ZKsync.

How Caper approaches this

Scroll's delegates asked which decisions their vote reserves. In a caper the answer is written into the contract rather than negotiated: a winning proposal runs as one of a fixed set of typed actions, such as a payment from the treasury, and anyone can carry it out once the caper's market has had its window to object (execution). A member who disagrees with where the organization is heading can leave at any time with their fair share of the treasury, in one transaction no founder or council can block.

References

• What is Scroll DAO – Scroll governance docs.
• Update on how we're evolving the Scroll DAO – Scroll forum, 18 September 2025.
• Governance Update: Security Council Transition, Contributor Roles & Operational Adjustments – Scroll forum, 13 April 2026, with delegate replies to 19 April.
• Scroll DAO Monthly Update – September, 2026 – Scroll forum, 24 September 2026, with replies of 28 September and 22 October.
• ZK-powered Ethereum Layer 2 Scroll debuts plans to airdrop SCR governance token – The Block, 8 October 2024.
• Scroll DAO to pause governance for redesign after leadership exits, says delegate – The Block, 11 September 2025.
• Scroll DAO Foundation to step back from daily operations while retaining veto power – The Block, 19 September 2025.