The Arbitrum DAO has opened a Snapshot temperature check vote on the most consequential single contribution to DeFi United yet—the release of 30,766 ETH (~$71 million) frozen from the Kelp DAO exploiter—and the early vote tape has been one-sided.
Within the first hour of voting, approximately 16.9 million ARB tokens had been cast in favor of releasing the funds, with no opposing votes recorded. The temperature check runs until May 7, 2026, after which, if it passes, the proposal advances to an on-chain vote on Tally.
If approved, Arbitrum’s contribution becomes the single largest line item in the DeFi United recovery tally to date—exceeding Consensys and Joseph Lubin’s combined 30,000 ETH commitment, Mantle’s 30,000 ETH credit facility, and Aave DAO’s pending 25,000 ETH treasury proposal.
What’s Being Voted On
The Snapshot proposal under temperature check is a Constitutional AIP filed on April 25 by Aave Labs as lead author, with Kelp DAO, LayerZero, Etherfi, and Compound as co-authors. Its purpose is narrow: to authorize the transfer of the 30,765.66 ETH currently held in the Arbitrum DAO-controlled wallet 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000DA0 to a new 2-of-3 Gnosis Safe 0xf228130ce4fAB082C7D5522c90833cec83A9C15e, controlled by signers from Aave, Kelp DAO, and on-chain security firm Certora.
The Safe is designated solely to receive recovered ETH and apply it toward restoring rsETH’s economic backing. If the coordinated recovery effort fails to proceed as planned, the proposal commits to returning to Arbitrum governance to determine an alternative use of the funds.
The proposal also carries an unusually broad indemnification clause: Aave Labs commits to indemnify the Arbitrum Foundation, Offchain Labs, and each individual member of the Arbitrum Security Council from any claims arising out of the freeze or release. The agreement is governed by New York law and carries no monetary cap, basket, or deductible—covering regulatory inquiries, tokenholder claims, and defense costs.
How the Funds Got Frozen
The 30,766 ETH was emergency-frozen on April 21 by the Arbitrum Security Council at 11:26 pm ET, after the council acted with a 9-of-12 supermajority of its elected members. The Council said it acted “with input from law enforcement as to the exploiter’s identity” and “weighed its commitment to the security and integrity of the Arbitrum community without impacting any Arbitrum users or applications.”
The freeze recovered roughly a quarter of the assets drained from the April 18 Kelp DAO exploit, which the broader incident report attributes to forged inbound LayerZero packets that allowed the attacker to release 116,500 unbacked rsETH on Ethereum without a corresponding burn on Unichain—approximately 18% of rsETH’s circulating supply at the time.
The attacker subsequently supplied 89,567 rsETH as collateral on Aave (Ethereum Core and Arbitrum), Compound, and Euler, borrowing approximately $236 million in WETH, wstETH, and other assets against those positions.
Also, the North Korean hacking collective Lazarus Group is now suspected as the operator behind the exploit—a detail that would place the incident alongside the 2022 Ronin Network and 2025 Bybit hacks in Lazarus’s portfolio of large DeFi targets.
Under standard timelines, the proposal could reach execution roughly 49 days from forum publication — early-to-mid June 2026. That timeline drew immediate pushback in the original forum thread, with delegate Nicksta asking whether the process could be expedited given that “many parties have open positions on Aave that might run into problems if they have to wait 49 days.”
Arbitrum Security Council member Griff Green, who publicly defended the council’s freeze decision, agreed the timeline warrants compression where possible. The temperature check threshold itself is straightforward: the Snapshot poll requires a simple majority of votable tokens, with the on-chain vote downstream requiring at least 4.5% of votable tokens voting in favor under Constitutional AIP rules. The first-hour 16.9 million ARB yes count puts the proposal on track to clear the participation requirement comfortably given current turnout patterns.
The DeFi United Tally as of April 30
If the Arbitrum proposal passes through to execution, the DeFi United recovery tally restructures around it. Contributors have so far donated or loaned over $311 million worth of ETH and stablecoins, against an original shortfall of approximately 163,200 ETH that has since narrowed materially.
Confirmed and pending pledges include:
- Arbitrum DAO — 30,766 ETH (this proposal, if approved)
- Consensys / Joseph Lubin — 30,000 ETH combined
- Mantle — 30,000 ETH credit facility (Lido staking yield + 1%, 3-year term)
- Aave DAO — 25,000 ETH treasury proposal (separate pending vote)
- Stani Kulechov (Aave founder, personal)—5,000 ETH
- LayerZero — 5,000 ETH directly + 5,000 ETH deployed on Aave (interest-accruing)
- Etherfi — up to 5,000 ETH
- Lido — 2,500 stETH
- Kelp DAO — 2,000 ETH
- Additional contributions from Golem, Ethena, and others
The Arbitrum allocation is structurally distinctive because it represents previously stolen funds rather than new capital pledges—meaning its release does not draw down any protocol’s treasury or solvency reserves. From a recovery accounting perspective, it is the cleanest contribution available.
The Centralisation Critique That Hangs Over the Vote
The Arbitrum Security Council’s freeze action—and now the DAO vote on what to do with the proceeds—has been the most-watched test of L2 emergency governance powers in the past 12 months. Some onlookers criticized the council’s move, raising concerns about centralized power and the absence of on-chain immutability for user funds. The 9-of-12 emergency multisig vote was lawful under the Arbitrum Constitution, but the precedent it sets is the structural concern that’s not going away.
Defenders argue the Council’s mandate is exactly this scenario: protecting the Arbitrum ecosystem from externally sourced exploit proceeds where law enforcement has identified the attacker. The current vote is, in effect, the DAO ratifying the Council’s discretion after the fact—and the 16.9M ARB first-hour yes count with no opposition suggests the broader delegate base is comfortable with that ratification.
But the real test is precedent. If the proposal passes, future Security Council emergency freezes carry implicit DAO endorsement. If it fails or attracts material opposition in later phases, the Council’s freedom to act in similar future scenarios narrows.
