Arbitrum Security Council Elects Six, Inherits 30,766 ETH Freeze

ArbitrumDAO elected six new members to its 12-person Security Council in a vote that ran April 12 through May 3. The winners will assume signing authority for the council multisig after a grace period ends May 21 and will inherit 30,766 ETH frozen in the KelpDAO case.

The successful candidates and their weighted vote totals were Michael Lewellen with 25.19 million; 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 of OPSEK with 20.82 million. Lewellen is a returning member. Eleven applicants passed compliance checks to qualify for the final voting round after an application window opened in March.

Voting lasted 21 days and used a time-weighted system: votes had full weight for the first seven days and then decayed. The grace period runs until May 21, after which the new members will begin signing for the multisig and take on operational responsibilities.

Weeks before the vote closed, the outgoing council froze 30,766 ETH tied to the KelpDAO exploit as an emergency action. A U.S. court has since blocked movement of the frozen funds while victims pursue claims. Once the new signers begin signing, they will inherit the file and any further protocol-level duties related to the freeze.

The Security Council functions as a multisignature body that can freeze or pause contracts on the Arbitrum Layer 2 network and make certain decisions about ARB token allocations from the DAO treasury. Six of the council’s 12 seats rotate every six months under Arbitrum’s governance framework.

At the time of reporting, ARB traded around $0.1193, up nearly 5% in the prior 24 hours. The KelpDAO case and any future emergency responses will be handled by the newly seated members after May 21.