Governance Council (GC) Formation

Summary

Requested Budget: 1,500,000 SCR Timeline: 6 Months

This proposal would establish the Governance Council (GC) - a dedicated body responsible for overseeing experimentation and research relating to the future directions of governance at Scroll DAO. The creation of this council would enable much more active research and experimentation towards the dual goal of growing the Scroll network while advancing on the value of progressive decentralization.

Motivation

As Scroll DAO matures, governance processes must evolve to be more resilient, transparent, and participatory. Thus, it is important to have a dedicated to funding new research and experiments that can help define the tools that the DAO will use the, as well as the future direction of the governance architecture overall.

However, a dedicated, representative council is needed to:

• Develop an initial research and development roadmap that the DAO will pursue in regards to governance.
• Work with the governance team to develop a decentralization roadmap.
• Develop and oversee any governance Requests for Proposal, as well as any one off proposals for a grant, experiment, or investment.
• Maintain relationships with and ensure reporting from all relevant projects supported by the Governance Council.

Execution Plan

Council Size

• 3 Members (could be a split seat)
  • 1 Scroll Foundation representatives
  • 2 delegates or governance professionals with strong relevant experience

Term

• 6 months

Time Commitment

• 10 hours/week per member

Selection Criteria

• Track record in governance participation (e.g., proposal authorship, delegate voting)
• Familiarity with onchain/offchain governance tooling
• Awareness of the landscape of governance research and what can help address the challenges that Scroll DAO faces
• Understanding of DAO legal/regulatory environments
• Cannot be an active member of a budget-disbursing council

The Governance team will lead a transparent hiring process where applicants will fill out a form where applicants are asked if they are comfortable sharing their full application or at least their name. The results, along with the data consented to be shared will be shared in the post announcing the decision. The DAO will have a 3-business day veto begin once the forum post is made.

Core Responsibilities

Core responsibilities would include:

• Produce a governance research & experimentation roadmap, initially for ~6 months
• Produce any relevant RFPs needed
• Provide regular updates on the forum (at least once every two weeks)
• Provide recommendations/next steps for future committee members (if this council continues after 6 months) and if it does not continue, then execution/implementation plans for the roadmap.
• Publish a summary report after at least 3 months

Conflict of Interest

Candidates and members agree to avoid any situations or relationships that could create a conflict of interest during the duration of their term. A conflict of interest is understood as any circumstance where personal, professional, or financial interests may compromise, or appear to compromise, a member’s ability to act impartially and in the best interest of the DAO.

That may include, but is not limited to:

• Acting as, or seeking to become, a service provider in areas that fall within the council’s scope of responsibilities.
• Holding financial interests that could benefit from decisions taken by the council.
• Maintaining professional or personal relationships that may bias judgment or decision-making.

Initial Focus - Research & Experimentation

The initial focus of the council in terms of domains of research & experimentation could entail, but is not limited to:

• How to make it as easy as possible for projects building on Scroll to partake in governance.
• AI + governance (e.g. an RFP for tools such as Event Horizon or x23ai to help ease the cognitive load of governance, building out a KOI instance for Scroll, producing a 'manifesto for the use of agents in AI', etc.).
• Exploring the deliberative tooling landscape to better understand which tools can be most helpful to experiment with and for which outcomes.
• Use of futarchy style solutions for specific governance and/or funding decisions.
• Alternatives to Discourse as the primary knowledge base for Scroll.
• Research roadmapping to both articulate the problems we want to work on and to better understand the state of research more broadly.
• How to most effectively operationalize progressive decentralization.

The GC would be responsible for review and, if appropriate, expanding this list and turning it into an initial roadmap.

Approval & Veto

The GC would be able to use it’s budget to approve new governance initiatives. The council would need a 2/3 vote to pass any proposal that uses less than 25% of the total budget, and a 3/3 to pass any proposal that would use more than 25% of the budget. Requests for more budget for the council would need to be put to a full DAO vote.

Once votes conclude, a 3 business day veto window kicks in. During this time, delegates are able to call for a veto on a GC decision if they see fit.

The veto would require a simple majority vote (either in the form of an off-chain vote that can be audited by the community or a formal on-chain vote)

Budget Request

Total Budget: 1.5m SCR

• 10k SCR per month * 6 months = 60k SCR [this assumes an SCR price of $0.3 - to be revised once approved to reflect market rates] x 2 (for two hired seats)= 120k SCR
• Remaining funds can be used for grants, tooling, or other relevant expenses to support the initial goal of the Governance Council.

Evaluation

The primary focus for this council is to:

• Produce a roadmap
• Produce a charter for the council going forward
• Review relevant proposals to fund research and experiments
• Support at one relevant research project
• Conduct at least three relevant experiments
• At least two forum posts a month with short updates on activities
• At least one in-depth report on activities in the first 5 months
• Produce a proposal to extend the GC, as appropriate

Conclusion

This proposal puts forth the idea of forming a Governance Council (GC) with a budget of 1.5m SCR. This council would be require a commitment of roughly 10 hours per week over 6 months. The GC would have the ability to review and then approve or reject proposals directly without requiring a full DAO vote, though the DAO will be able to veto any decisions.

The formation of the GC would ensure that Scroll DAO can become a place for innovative governance, which itself would both attract top talent and make it easier for relevant stakeholders in Scroll (especially projects building on Scroll) to partake in governance.