The Ethereum ecosystem recently experienced a turnaround, but it is not calm within the Ethereum community. The zkRollup project Scroll's former team members and the co-founder of Movement, which just ended testing and announced an airdrop, have quarreled. Scroll accused Movement of code plagiarism, while Movement claimed that Scroll's team acted inappropriately, causing reputational damage to the Layer 2 ecosystem by themselves. Currently, the official members of the Scroll team have not formally responded.
Why is there a direct confrontation?
The spark of the argument occurred in someone else's comment section. @enshriningplebs posted, "We invented the concept of 'postconfirmations' to issue our tokens before the mainnet launch." @seunlanlege mockingly replied, "Oh, so it's only cool if researchers from the Ethereum Foundation make up some objectively meaningless garbage protocol? What double standards!"
Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs, then added, "That's right, only Uniswap and Flashbots are allowed to do this because they align with Ethereum's interests (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 ethical."
Then, Scroll's former team member Toghrul directly retorted Rushi's sarcastic remarks, saying, "Stop pretending to be so high and mighty, okay?"
"Let's talk about those popular terms created by EVM L2?" He believes that the new term 'postconfirmations' essentially just renames 'preconfirmations,' and this renaming was prompted by them being mocked for calling themselves 'fast finality Rollup.' More absurdly, they themselves do not even understand whether they are optimistic Rollup or sidechain; these two architectures are inherently contradictory.
Toghrul mentioned that he spoke candidly about 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 the entire codebase of Movement is almost forked from Aptos, with only minimal changes made. In contrast, those so-called 'useless EVM L2s' have produced many widely used core technologies, like Polygon's invention of Plonky2 and Arbitrum's general fraud proofs based on Wasm, while Movement can't even figure out EVM support.
Rushi also showed no mercy, directly saying, "High and mighty? Are you kidding me?" and then began to list Scroll's offenses one by one.
1. After years of utilizing the community, you launched a predatory incentive plan that ultimately shifted the burden onto ordinary investors.
2. The team has been selling secondary market shares for several years before the launch.
3. Other team members were forced to buy in at an $18 billion valuation while senior leadership simultaneously sold off.
4. You even directly allocated airdrops to your own wallets for cashing out.
5. Designed the most predatory token economic model aimed at harming every community member.
To express Rushi's anger directly, here's his original text for readers to feel:
"Today, because of your actions, almost no one is willing to identify as EVM L2 anymore. You delivered the worst product, and the entire community and ecosystem are filled with resentment towards you; clearly, you are just bored. I won't comment on technical matters; that should be left to researchers. You have 'pursued' me for several months, while I have remained silent and respectful. Technical arguments are one thing; 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 an outright scam."
He further remarked, "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 six of your colleagues—half of whom have left—specially came to apologize to me for your actions)."
"In the past two months, a quarter of your team has applied for our positions. There are many people I really like over there, so I feel a bit guilty, but please don't use such condescending words with me, haha."
Finally, Rushi said, "I am actively searching for 'Scroll Scam' and delving deeper into it. @toghrulmaharram don't think about coming to me for trouble, haha."
The beginning and end of the Scroll controversy.
Earlier this year, Starknet sparked outrage due to the term 'electronic beggar.' Coincidentally, Scroll made the same mistake when its senior researcher Toghrul Maharramov directly referred to users as 'electronic beggars' during a confrontation, even using malicious terms like fxxk when ridiculing users for trying to gain airdrops.
On September 15, the crypto project World Liberty Financial, owned by the Trump family, announced that Scroll co-founder Sandy Peng would become an advisor to the project, which the community saw as an example of Scroll's team being skilled at maintaining relational networks.
In October, Scroll became Binance's first pre-market trading project and announced its tokenomics. However, this news sparked community skepticism, accusing Scroll of having too low airdrop quotas while Binance Launchpool's quota ratio was too high, clearly favoring Binance.
From the data, the total supply of SCR is 1 billion tokens, with an initial circulation of only 190 million tokens, accounting for 19% of the total. In the token distribution, airdrops account for only 15%, while ecosystem and growth account for 35%, and Scroll DAO treasury accounts for 10%.
Even the 15% of the airdrop only had 2% in circulation at TGE, with the remaining portion needing to be gradually unlocked over four years. In contrast, Binance Launchpool allocated 5.5%, and the TGE circulation ratio for this part was as high as 2.5%, with the remaining 17% also unlocked over four years, making the initial circulation ratio of Launchpool far higher than that of the community airdrop.
In addition, the Scroll Foundation accounts for 10%, core contributors account for 23%, and investors account for 17%. The tokens of core contributors and investors only begin to unlock a year after TGE, but the proportions held by the ecosystem, Launchpool, and the Scroll Foundation are relatively high in initial circulation. This distribution mechanism amplifies the holdings of Binance and large institutions, while the community's interests are significantly compressed, deepening the community's doubts about the design of Scroll's tokenomics.
The community used K-lines to show Scroll what uniqueness looks like, and even Scroll's project logo was ridiculed by the community.
On one hand, Scroll is very adept at upward management, while on the other hand, community management appears to be struggling. After the argument between former team members and Rushi broke out, it is evident that Movement is in a favorable position in public opinion.
What does the community think?
Leo Wong, founder of Movement ecosystem DEX WarpGate, stated that Toghrul's attacks not only lack technical basis but are also filled with malice. He accused Scroll of predatory behavior, such as internal sell-offs, exploitative token economics, and community farms based on false promises. These actions not only tarnished Scroll's reputation but also sullied the ideals of a fair blockchain ecosystem.
"If Scroll truly has technical criticisms, please have your researchers and engineers present them respectfully. Resorting to personal attacks and public smears will only highlight your lack of confidence in your own platform and practices. The blockchain industry relies on cooperation, transparency, and trust, not on such petty retaliatory actions."
Developer Andrew Capasso stated that Toghrul reshaped criticism of Scroll into a personal attack, effectively evading responsibility for the collective actions of the team. He believes Toghrul is still entangled in the minutiae of words and does not realize that the real issue is the moral damage Scroll intentionally inflicted on the community.
"This undermines your credibility whether you like it or not. A sense of responsibility and integrity is more important than technical details; you are not an obscure developer but one of their strongest PR warriors. Keep being stubborn, and the Scroll logo will forever be branded on you, haha."
KOL Crypto Vito stated, "Without making judgments of right or wrong, there are some takeaways from these two conversations that I believe everyone needs to know."
1. The era of merely aligning with a certain ideology to raise valuations and secure funding has ended.
2. Please spend money on those who truly know how to communicate with retail communities; those who don’t know how to speak should keep quiet.
3. As a project party in the crypto circle, you are wrong, and retail investors are right; do not compete with retail investors in research capabilities.
4. It's best to think of yourself as a retail investor and spend some time playing with what they like most.
5. Brainwash VCs, don't brainwash yourself.
Some also told Rushi that this was entirely a malicious argument, "Toghrul's technical comments have nothing to do with Scroll's poor community management. This is a good mobilization to get those who have been victims to publicly support you, but you must recognize that this is not 'a good-faith open technical discussion.'"
However, Rushi believes that his response post is completely unrelated to technical issues, merely pointing out Toghrul's malicious and insulting attitude towards him and the Movement team. "I had remained silent before because I could handle it myself, but I will not tolerate any insults or harm directed at my team."
