Written by: shushu
The Ethereum ecosystem has just welcomed a reversal in sentiment in the past two days, but there is still unrest in the Ethereum community. Former Scroll team members and the recently completed testnet and announced airdrop Movement co-founder have gotten into an argument. Scroll accused Movement of code plagiarism, and in return, Movement claimed Scroll's team behaved inappropriately, causing damage to the reputation of the Layer 2 ecosystem. Currently, the official members of the Scroll team have not responded formally.
Why is a clear fight happening?
The fuse of the debate ignited in someone else's comment section. @enshriningplebs posted, "We invented the concept of 'postconfirmations' to issue our tokens before the mainnet launch." @seunlanlege jokingly replied, "Oh, so only researchers from the Ethereum Foundation creating some objectively meaningless garbage protocols are considered cool, right? What a double standard."
Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche then added, "That's right, only Uniswap and Flashbots are allowed to do this because they align with the interests of Ethereum (by the way, I really like their architecture). As for the thousands of popular terms we created for those useless EVM L2s, they are much more moral."
Then, former Scroll team member Toghrul directly rebutted Rushi's sarcastic comments by saying, "Stop pretending to be so high and mighty, okay?"
"What about those popular terms created by EVM L2?" He believes that the new term "postconfirmations" is essentially just a renaming of "preconfirmations" and that this renaming was a response to being mocked when they claimed to be a 'fast finality Rollup'. Even more ridiculous is that they themselves do not understand whether it is an optimistic Rollup or a sidechain; these two architectures are fundamentally contradictory.
Toghrul mentioned that he directly addressed these issues in group discussions, but the response was, "No one uses them, so they can't be considered original," leaving him puzzled. He also said that Movement's entire codebase is almost a fork from Aptos, with only minimal changes. In comparison, those so-called 'useless EVM L2s' have produced many widely used core technologies, such as Polygon inventing Plonky2, and Arbitrum creating general fraud proofs based on Wasm, while Movement cannot even understand EVM support.
Rushi did not hold back, directly stating, "High and mighty? Are you kidding me?" and then started to list Scroll's offenses one by one.
1. Having exploited the community for years, yet launching a predatory incentive plan that ultimately shifts the burden onto ordinary investors.
2. The team has been selling secondary market shares for several years before the launch.
3. Other members of the team were forced to buy in at an 18 billion valuation, while senior leaders were selling at the same time.
4. You even directly allocated airdrops to your own wallets for cashing out.
5. Designed the most predatory token economic model with the aim of harming every community member.
To directly express Rushi's anger, here is his original content for readers to feel:
"Today, because of your actions, hardly anyone is willing to consider themselves EVM L2 anymore. You delivered the worst product, and the entire community and ecosystem are filled with resentment towards you. Clearly, you are feeling quite idle now. I won't comment on technical matters; that should be solved by researchers. You have been 'relentlessly pursuing' me for several months, while I have remained quiet and respectful. Technical debates are one thing, and I believe we can improve, but you have crossed the line. If you want to debate with Franck on Spaces, go ahead. Otherwise, please improve your own chain and stop making it look like a complete scam."
He also added, "I have respect for some members of your team, but Scroll and you can be considered one of the worst participants in this field (at least 6 of your colleagues—half of whom have already left—specifically came to apologize to me for your behavior)."
"In the past two months, a quarter of your team has applied for our positions. There are many people I really like on your side, so I feel a bit guilty, but please don't use the term 'high and mighty' with me, haha."
Finally, Rushi said, "I am actively searching for 'Scroll scam' and learning more about it. @toghrulmaharram don't think about coming to trouble me, haha."
The chronology of the Scroll controversy
Earlier this year, Starknet sparked outrage with the term 'electronic beggar.' Coincidentally, Scroll made the same mistake, as its senior researcher Toghrul Maharram directly referred to users as 'electronic beggars' during a confrontation and even mocked users using malicious terms like fxxk to gain airdrops.
On September 15, the Trump family's crypto project World Liberty Financial announced that Scroll co-founder Sandy Peng would serve as an advisor for the project, which the community regarded as one of the examples of Scroll team's adeptness at maintaining connections.
In October, Scroll became the first pre-market trading project for Binance and announced its tokenomics. However, this news raised community doubts, accusing Scroll of having a low airdrop quota while Binance Launchpool had a high quota ratio, clearly trying to curry favor with Binance.
According to the data, the total supply of SCR is 1 billion, with an initial circulation of only 190 million, accounting for 19% of the total. In the token distribution, airdrops only account for 15%, while the ecosystem and growth account for 35%, and the Scroll DAO treasury accounts for 10%.
Even the 15% airdrop only had 2% in circulation at TGE, and the remaining portion needs to be gradually unlocked over four years. In contrast, Binance Launchpool allocated 5.5%, with a TGE circulation ratio as high as 2.5%, and the remaining 17% also unlocking over four years, making the initial circulation proportion of Launchpool much higher than that of community airdrops.
Additionally, the Scroll Foundation accounts for 10%, core contributors account for 23%, and investors account for 17%. The tokens of core contributors and investors only start to unlock a year after TGE, but the ecosystem, Launchpool, and Scroll Foundation hold a relatively large proportion in the initial circulation. This distribution mechanism amplifies the holding weight of Binance and large institutions, while the interests of the community are significantly compressed, deepening the community's doubts about the design of Scroll's tokenomics.
The community used K lines to show Scroll what it means to be unique, even the logo of Scroll was mocked by the community.
On one hand, Scroll is quite adept at upward management, while on the other hand, community management seems overwhelmed. After the recent argument between former team members and Rushi, Movement clearly appears to be in the favorable public opinion.
What does the community think?
Movement's DEX WarpGate founder Leo Wong stated that Toghrul's attacks not only lack technical basis but are also filled with malice. He accused Scroll of predatory behavior while criticizing Movement's terminology or architecture: internal sell-offs, exploitative token economic models, and community farming based on false promises. These actions not only tarnished Scroll's reputation but also stained the ideals of a fair blockchain ecosystem.
"If Scroll truly has technical criticisms, please let your researchers and engineers present them respectfully. Resorting to personal attacks and public smearing only highlights your lack of confidence in your own platform and practices. The blockchain industry relies on cooperation, transparency, and trust, not on this petty revenge behavior."
Developer Andrew Capasso stated that Toghrul's reframing of criticism of Scroll into a personal attack is actually avoiding responsibility for the team's collective behavior. He believes Toghrul is still entangled in the minutiae of wording and has not realized that the real issue is Scroll's deliberate moral harm to the community.
"This undermines your credibility, whether you like it or not. Responsibility and integrity are more important than technical details; you are not a nameless developer, but one of their strongest PR warriors. Keep being stubborn, and the Scroll logo will be forever branded on you, haha."
KOL Crypto Veto said, "I won't evaluate right or wrong, but there are some takeaways from these two conversations that I think everyone needs to know."
1. The 'Halal Era' of raising valuation and getting funding solely by aligning a certain ideology is over.
2. Please spend money on people who truly know how to communicate with the retail community; those who don't know how to speak should stay silent.
3. As a project party in the crypto world, you are wrong, and the retail investors are right. Don't compete with retail investors on research capabilities.
4. It's best to consider yourself a retail investor and take some time to play with what they like most.
5. Brainwash VCs, and don't brainwash yourself.
Some also told Rushi that this is purely malicious debate, "Toghrul's technical comments have nothing to do with Scroll's poor community management. This is a great mobilization that allows those who have been harmed to publicly support you, but you must recognize that this is not 'a good-natured public technical discussion.'"
However, Rushi believes that his response post has nothing to do with technical issues; it merely points out that Toghrul's attitude towards him and Movement's team is filled with malice and insult. "I have remained silent before because I can handle it myself, but I will not tolerate any insult or harm to my team."
