Arbitrum council member: blockchains rely on social consensus

On April 21, 2026, the Arbitrum Security Council used a 7-of-12 multisignature authority to transfer 30,766 ETH, about $71 million, from an attacker address into a wallet on Arbitrum One that the council has frozen. The transfer followed an exploit of KelpDAO and was executed by the council multisig rather than by a court order or a protocol-level software update.

The council consists of 12 members elected by the Arbitrum DAO. Its multisig requires approval from at least seven members to authorize actions. The council does not have direct control over funds held inside ordinary smart contracts on the network.

The multisig threshold is designed to require a supermajority for interventions. The governance structure assumes that if up to nine members were compromised, at least four honest members could block a malicious coalition. Arbitrum One is jointly governed by the Arbitrum DAO and the Security Council.

In an April 23 interview, Green argued that blockchains are not absolutely immutable and depend on community agreement to function. He described the council’s intervention as an example of how governance and human judgment can affect outcomes on a chain where validators and node operators choose which software and rules to follow.

The action is an uncommon use of governance by a major Layer 2 network to lock exploited funds. The transfer and freeze were carried out by a committee of elected members rather than through automated protocol enforcement.

For users and investors on Arbitrum One, the event clarifies that the network includes governance mechanisms capable of targeting specific wallets in certain circumstances. The seven-of-twelve requirement aims to limit unilateral action, but any intervention depends on elected council members authorizing it.