Let’s clarify this a bit, since everyone is feeling uneasy and no one has explained well how it actually works. The Arbitrum Security Council (12 members) cannot freeze funds or directly take money out of your wallet. So how did they manage to retrieve the ETH from the hacker? They did it by intercepting the official bridge at the moment the hacker attempted to withdraw the funds. Here’s exactly what they did: - With 9 out of 12 signatures, they approved and executed a temporary upgrade to the Inbox contract (the official bridge between Arbitrum and Ethereum). - In this temporary upgrade, they added a function that allowed them to forge a message as if it had come from the hacker. - They changed the destination address: instead of sending the ETH to the hacker’s wallet on Ethereum, they sent it to a frozen wallet controlled by Arbitrum. In summary: Arbitrum does not have the power to freeze or directly take funds that are safely held in your wallet on Arbitrum. What it can do is manage and temporarily modify the official bridge that moves assets from Arbitrum to Ethereum. If the hacker had not used the official bridge, Arbitrum would never have been able to recover the funds in this way. Even if the hacker had exited via non-official bridges (such as Jumper, Across, Hop, Relay, etc.), or if they had fragmented (atomized) the amount across many small wallets, it would have been far more difficult—or impossible—for the Council to fully intercept them. This makes it clear: Arbitrum cannot freeze you or directly withdraw funds from your wallet. But one important question remains: What if hackers manage to compromise 9 out of the 12 Security Council signatures and decide to divert or steal all assets passing through the official bridge at that moment?