As a highly regarded Layer 2 solution in the Ethereum ecosystem, Scroll has recently entered a DAO operation suspension status due to key leadership changes and governance structure adjustment challenges. This decision is not sudden — as early as the fourth quarter of 2024, the community had noticed delays in the governance process, and the departure of co-founder Eugene Chen in early 2025 pushed the project to the brink of operational suspension.
Community representative Olimpio confirmed the fact of 'suspension of operations' in the community conference call in March, but deliberately emphasized the use of 'Pause' instead of 'Terminate'. This wording difference reflects the team's reserved attitude towards the project's existence and exposes the high uncertainty of the current situation. As of now, the core sections of Scroll's official Discord and governance forum have switched to 'read-only mode', leaving only a few community communication channels, further intensifying market concerns.
II. Departure of Core Members: The 'Trust Rift' in the Decentralization Vision
The trigger for this governance crisis at Scroll is the concentrated resignation of several core members, including co-founder Eugene Chen. In the open resignation letter released in February, Eugene candidly expressed strong dissatisfaction with the project's development direction, particularly pointing out the internal tendency towards 'minimal governance' — he believes this decision will directly 'slow down or even halt Scroll's decentralization process', which contradicts the core vision of 'gradual decentralization' established at the project's inception.
"I chose to continue voicing for the community before officially resigning on September 30, hoping to make more people realize that decentralization is not optional, but the foundation for the survival of Layer 2 projects." Eugene's statement has caused a stir in the community. More importantly, another core member Jamilya K publicly expressed in an internal meeting before her departure that she felt 'confused about the current decisions' and repeatedly urged the leadership to disclose more details of the adjustments to the community, but ultimately received no response, which has deepened outsiders' understanding of the chaotic state of Scroll's internal management.
According to informed sources, this wave of resignations is not an isolated case — since November 2024, nearly one-third of the members of the Scroll technical and governance teams have successively left, including engineers responsible for optimizing the core algorithms of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-Rollup), which is undoubtedly a further blow to Layer 2 projects that rely on technological iteration.
III. Unresolved Proposals: The 'Abandonment' Risks Under Governance Suspension
Although Scroll officials emphasized that 'existing governance proposals are still valid on the platform', the concerns raised by community representatives during the meeting pointed directly to the core: under the complete suspension of the governance mechanism, the voting, execution, and supervision processes of these proposals have fallen into a 'vacuum state', which is essentially no different from 'invalid'.
Currently stalled key proposals include two categories:
Proposal for the establishment of a governance committee: This proposal was originally planned to complete the election of 11 community representatives in Q1 2025 to replace the original core team decision-making model, which is a key step in Scroll's decentralization process. However, with the governance suspension, the election process has been completely frozen, and both candidates and community supporters are in a state of waiting;
Proposal for the management of contributor funds from May to December 2025: Involving about 8 million dollars in community incentive fund distribution, covering developer subsidies, rewards for ecological partners, etc., the stagnation of this proposal directly affects the subsequent participation enthusiasm of nearly 200 ecological contributors.
In response to the community's doubts, co-founder Haichen Shen only vaguely stated in a meeting that 'the governance structure is being redesigned', but did not provide any specific timeline or roadmap; team member Raza repeatedly emphasized that 'suspension means everything is possible, governance may be restored in a more flexible form in the future', yet consistently avoided key questions such as 'the core direction of the redesign' and 'whether the voting rights of $SCR tokens will be adjusted'. More worryingly, several community representatives pointed out that the leadership used the term 'experiment' at least five times during the meeting to describe the current governance adjustments, a vague expression that not only failed to alleviate concerns but also led outsiders to suspect that Scroll has deviated from its established decentralization path and is caught in a 'blind trial and error' dilemma.
IV. Technical Foundation and Decentralization Vision: Deep-seated Contradictions Behind the Suspension
Since its founding in 2021 by Ye Zhang, Sandy Peng, and Haichen Shen, Scroll has rapidly risen to prominence with the advantage of ZK-Rollup technology — its Ethereum-based ZK-EVM has achieved high compatibility with the Ethereum mainnet while reducing transaction costs by about 90%, and at one point was considered a 'potential dark horse in the Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem'. The establishment of the DAO was originally intended to achieve 'gradual decentralization': initially led by the core team for technical development, decision-making authority would gradually be transferred to $SCR token holders as the ecosystem matured, allowing the community to decide on key issues such as the technical roadmap and funding distribution.
This governance suspension is undoubtedly a significant blow to this vision. To
For $SCR token holders, the core concern is 'loss of decision-making power' — if the governance structure is redesigned and the voting rights of token holders are weakened, even becoming 'symbolic rights', this will directly undermine
the value support of SCR; for ecological partners, the suspension of governance has led to stagnation in funding distribution and freezing of cooperation proposals, which has begun to affect the onboarding plans of some DApp developers. It has been reported that 3 DeFi projects originally scheduled to connect with Scroll have temporarily shelved their collaboration.
V. Future Fog: The Unknown Cycle of Waiting for 'Sorting Things Out'
As of now, the Scroll leadership has not provided any clear information regarding the restoration of governance, only requesting the community in an official announcement to 'give more time for the team to sort things out'. This vague statement has triggered various speculations in the crypto market: some believe this is the team's effort to buy time for 'restarting governance', while others worry that Scroll may abandon its original DAO model in favor of a more centralized 'foundation-led' structure, and some extreme views speculate that the project may face 'soft landing' risks.
For the entire Layer 2 industry, Scroll's predicament serves as a cautionary tale: while pursuing technological breakthroughs, how to balance 'governance efficiency' with 'decentralization', how to establish a stable leadership turnover mechanism, and how to ensure the community's right to know and decision-making power remain ongoing challenges that all DAO projects need to continuously explore.
Currently, Scroll's stakeholders — whether they are $SCR token holders, ecological developers, or ordinary users — are all waiting for the leadership's next move. However, it is certain that 'suspension' will not be the end, and whether Scroll can emerge from this governance crisis and regain its decentralization vision may depend on whether the team can truly listen to the voices of the community and rebuild the lost trust during the process of 'sorting things out'. #BNB创新高
