The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind the Ethereum layer-2 network Scroll said it will propose a plan to dissolve its security council and transfer control of the network to an account managed by an internal team.
The proposal’s announcement comes two months after Scroll’s top fee-generating decentralized application (dapp), crypto neobank Ether.fi, moved to Optimism’s OP mainnet. That led to about 300,000 user accounts and more than $160 million in total value being locked, moved away from the network.
In a government update, a core Scroll contributor said the Security Council was simply too expensive. Scroll is laying off several contributors within the DAO and reducing the capacity of its operational committee. The handover is targeted for the next 10 days, pending support from the current council.
“Having evaluated the Security Council’s costs against its actual use in recent quarters, we believe that continuation is no longer warranted,” the submission reads.
The project said all contract changes would be done transparently and remain verifiable onchain.
Adding to the network’s turbulence, a recent increase in Scroll’s network fees appeared to be artificial rather than a sign of organic demand.
Over the course of six days in early April, the network raised the amount it charges for publishing data to the Ethereum network by a factor of 1,280, creating the illusion of a massive increase in 30-day chain fee momentum, according to analysis by L2BEAT.
The adjustment forced users to pay over $50,000 in excess transaction fees for data posting that would normally have cost about $280. The extreme, temporary price change was rolled back on April 9.
Ether.fi’s migration shifted about $13 million in annual fees away from Scroll, according to DeFiLlama data, and trimmed the network’s TVL to about $23 million.
