Jump to content
About Crypto

Crypto guides and market analysis

Arbitrum council moved $30 million from Binance-linked wallet

Arbitrum’s Security Council moved 8,425 ETH and 74.56 million ARB linked to the Binance hack into a frozen wallet; Binance now seeks a DAO vote to recover them.

About Crypto Newsroom2 min read

Arbitrum council moved $30 million from Binance-linked wallet

8,425 ETH and 74,559,805.2 ARB linked to the Binance exploit were moved by Arbitrum’s Security Council into a frozen wallet on Oct. 30. The assets were worth about $30 million, and the transfer happened without the attacker signing it with the wallet’s private key.

Arbitrum’s emergency notice says the funds are held at an address ending in 0DA0. It says no other users’ funds or applications were affected.

How did the council move funds without the key?

The 12-member Security Council used its emergency powers to temporarily change Arbitrum’s Inbox contract, which carries messages from Ethereum to Arbitrum. CoinDesk reported that nine council members must approve an emergency upgrade.

The temporary code added a function that let the network treat transactions as if they came from the attacker’s address. Two transactions moved the ETH and ARB to the holding wallet, then the council restored the original contract code in the same action, according to Arbitrum’s notice.

A private key is a secret code used to authorize transactions from a crypto wallet. Here, the council used control of Arbitrum’s upgrade process to move the assets without that authorization.

Who can move the assets now?

Only an ArbitrumDAO governance vote can move the frozen funds, the council said. Binance has submitted a proposal asking the DAO to release them to a recovery address and says it will apply returned assets toward losses and costs from the incident.

Binance’s proposal says it will cover affected users’ losses through its Secure Asset Fund for Users and company treasury. It also says the assets cannot be released while a legal order blocks the transfer, unless a court changes or lifts that order.

What happens before the funds can be returned?

The Binance proposal outlines a process starting with forum discussion, followed by a tokenholder temperature check and an on-chain vote. Binance estimates the full process could take about 49 days, or longer if legal issues delay it.

Watch for the temperature-check vote after the forum discussion; the proposal’s timeline sets that discussion at one week.

Sources and documents