Arbitrum explains the emergency brake it used after the Binance exploit.

Arbitrum's Security Council says it froze 8,425 ETH and 74,559,805.2 ARB associated with the Binance exploit at 00:08 UTC on 30 October. Its account of the intervention says the assets were transferred to a holding address and can only be moved by an ArbitrumDAO governance vote.

This is a follow-up to the incident covered in the morning edition. The new focus is the mechanism used on Arbitrum One, rather than another estimate of the overall theft. In its 30 October disclosure, the council says other users' funds and applications were unaffected by its action.

The council describes a temporary upgrade to the Ethereum-side Inbox contract. It added a function that could impersonate the sender of a cross-chain transaction, used two transactions to move the identified assets, then restored the original implementation. Contributors prepared the transaction payload, which council members verified before signing.

That sequence matters when assessing what emergency powers actually permit. In this instance, the published account describes an intervention against a particular address, rather than a general suspension of the network. The council also published transaction references so readers can inspect the action.

The announcement establishes a freeze and a governance condition for subsequent movement. It does not establish that victims have already been reimbursed. Recovery, decisions about release and final distribution are separate steps; readers should not treat a held balance as a completed refund.