- Arbitrum DAO is voting on whether to release 30,766 frozen ETH to DeFi United after the Kelp DAO attack.
- The Arbitrum Security Council froze the funds on April 20 after the attacker moved them to an Arbitrum One address.
Arbitrum DAO has opened a governance vote on whether to release 30,766 ETH to DeFi United, following the Kelp DAO attack and an emergency freeze by the Arbitrum Security Council.
Frozen ETH now needs governance approval
The vote began with strong early support. In the first hour, 16.9 million ARB tokens were cast in favor of the proposal, while no votes had been recorded against it. The vote will remain open until May 7.
The funds were frozen on April 20 after the Kelp DAO attacker moved about $71.1 million worth of ETH to an Arbitrum One address. The Security Council transferred the assets to the address ending in DA0, effectively locking them until a formal governance action could decide their release.
At the time, the council said it had acted with input from law enforcement regarding the exploiter’s identity. It also said the intervention was designed to protect the security and integrity of the Arbitrum community without affecting users or applications.
Emergency powers meet DAO oversight
The case puts Arbitrum’s governance structure under a practical test. Security councils are meant to act quickly when protocols face urgent threats. DAOs, by contrast, are designed to make consequential decisions through public voting. Here, both mechanisms are being used in sequence.
That matters for DeFi. Freezing funds after an exploit may protect victims or preserve evidence, but it also raises sensitive questions about decentralization, authority and precedent. Who can intervene, under what conditions, and how quickly must token holders be asked to approve the next step?
For Arbitrum, the proposal is not just a transfer request. It is a live example of how large Layer 2 ecosystems may handle stolen assets when law enforcement, emergency governance and public token voting all meet in the same incident.
