ArbitrumDAO has elected six new members to its 12-person Security Council, a governance update that immediately lifted market sentiment around ARB. The token rallied nearly 5% to $0.1193 after the results, as traders interpreted the vote as a strengthening of Arbitrum’s emergency-response capacity.
The new cohort will begin signing multisig transactions on May 21, 2026, inheriting a live security and legal file tied to the KelpDAO exploit and 30,766 ETH in frozen funds. The vote ran from April 12 to May 3 and replaced half of the council, which rotates six seats every six months.
New Signers Take Over During an Active Recovery Dispute
The elected members were led by Michael Lewellen, who received 25.19 million weighted votes. He was followed by DZack23 with 24.01 million, yoav.eth with 21.75 million, Certora with 21.56 million, bartek.eth with 21.05 million and Pablo Sabbatella with 20.82 million.
The group brings a mix of returning council experience, protocol engineering and third-party security expertise. That composition matters because Arbitrum’s Security Council is not entering a quiet operating period. It is taking over during an unresolved dispute over assets frozen after one of DeFi’s most consequential recent exploits.
In April, the outgoing council froze 30,766 ETH, worth about $71 million, after the KelpDAO exploit on April 18, 2026. Attackers reportedly drained roughly $290 million through a LayerZero bridge, and the freeze was intended to preserve funds for victim recovery.
Frozen ETH Keeps Legal Risk in Focus
The recovery process has become more complicated. Reporting cited in the vote coverage said a U.S. court treated ArbitrumDAO as a liable “partnership,” allowing a plaintiff to seek enforcement of an $877 million judgment against North Korea by targeting the frozen ETH.
Aave has filed an emergency motion to lift the restraining order, arguing the assets should be returned to exploit victims rather than redirected to unrelated judgment creditors. That filing leaves the incoming council with a difficult governance and legal handoff.
The ARB rally signals improved confidence in Arbitrum’s governance structure, but not a resolution of the underlying risk. The frozen ETH remains a live liquidity and recovery variable, with implications for DeFi counterparties, hedging strategies and protocol-level trust.
Once the new signers assume multisig duties on May 21, they will face immediate decisions around recovery coordination, legal exposure and security governance. The next material signals will come from court filings, any ruling on the restraining order and subsequent council actions tied to the frozen funds.
