US EditionETH news: Arbitrum freezes $71 million in ether tied to Kelp DAO exploit
The emergency move recovers about a quarter of the $292 million stolen and leaves the funds accessible only through a future governance vote.
- On Monday, The Arbitrum Security Council froze 30,766 ETH worth roughly $71 million linked to the Kelp DAO exploit, moving the funds into an intermediary wallet accessible only through further governance action.
- Attackers drained 116,500 rsETH totaling $292 million from Kelp DAO's LayerZero-powered bridge on Saturday by exploiting compromised verifier infrastructure, with the freeze now recovering roughly a quarter of the stolen assets.
- The Security Council acted with input from law enforcement regarding the exploiter's identity and executed the freeze "without impacting any Arbitrum users or applications," according to a statement Tuesday.
- Governance-Level interventions remain controversial because the Security Council's discretionary control over an otherwise permissionless network introduces centralized authority despite the frozen funds requiring further Arbitrum governance approval.
- LayerZero attributed the attack with preliminary confidence to North Korea's Lazarus Group, while Kelp DAO coordinates with ecosystem partners on a recovery fund and weighs legal options with affected counterparties.
38 Articles
38 Articles
Arbitrum Security Council Freezes $71 Million in ETH Tied to Kelp DAO Exploit
The Arbitrum Security Council executed an emergency freeze of 30,766 ETH, worth approximately $71 million, on April 20, moving funds linked to Saturday’s $292 million Kelp DAO exploit into an intermediary wallet that can only be accessed through further Arbitrum governance action. The transfer completed at 11:26 p.m. ET, according to Arbitrum’s statement on X. The council said it acted with input from law enforcement regarding the exploiter’s id…
Charles Guillemet argues that Arbitrum's intervention made visible a structural reality that the L2 network ecosystem rarely admits. Read more
The Security Council of Arbitrum has frozen 30,766 ETH — valued at about $71.5 million — linked to the exploit that emptied KelpDAO’s reserves just a week ago. The bill is late. The attacker had already moved more than $175 million into Ethereum mainnet before the layer 2 network activated the emergency blockade. The hack to KelpDAO, one of the most used liquid restoration protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem, has left a hole of $292 million. It …
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