How Arbitrum Froze a Hacker’s Crypto in 10 Minutes

According to the Security Council’s emergency action disclosure, the move executed at 8:08 a.m. Hong Kong time on October 30 and sent the funds to an address ending in 0DA0, which they can leave only through an ArbitrumDAO vote. The council said no other user’s funds or applications were affected. Press estimates valued the frozen assets near $30 million, a small slice of the roughly $6.3 billion Binance says was withdrawn from its wallets.

Three separate powers were in play. The council never had the first: the ability to sign for the wallet. It used the second: control over how Arbitrum One accepts transactions. The third, deciding who ends up with the money, sits with th...