The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind Ethereum layer-2 network Scroll plans to dissolve its Security Council and reduce DAO staff to lower operational costs.
The restructuring follows a significant financial hit to the network after its top fee-generating application, Ether.fi, migrated to Optimron's OP mainnet. This move drained approximately $160 million in total value locked (TVL) and $13 million in annualized fees from the Scroll ecosystem.
According to a governance update from a Scroll core contributor, the Security Council has become too expensive to maintain. The project is currently laying off several DAO contributors and reducing the capacity of its operational committees.
“After evaluating the Security0 Council’s cost relative to its actual usage over the past quarters, we believe continuation is no longer justified,” the contributor wrote in the post.
The handover of network control to an account managed by an internal team is targeted for completion within the next 10 days, pending support from the current council.
Fee spike allegations
Recent data suggests the network also faced scrutiny over a sudden surge in transaction costs. Analysis from L2BEAT indicates that Scroll artificially inflated its network gas fees by a factor of 1,280 for several days in early April.
This adjustment increased the cost of publishing data to the Ethereum mainnet, forcing users to pay over $50,000 in excess fees. The cost for data posting that normally would have been roughly $280 spiked significantly during this period. The network rolled back the extreme pricing on April 9.
Data from DeFiLlama shows that Ether.fi’s exit reduced Scroll's TVL to approximately $23 million. The project maintains that all subsequent contract changes will be executed transparently and remain verifiable onchain.
