Arbitrum Constitutional AIP: the release of frozen ETH and ARB

Binance has posted a Constitutional AIP asking the ArbitrumDAO to approve the release of 8,425.997 ETH and 74,559,805.2 ARB that the Arbitrum Security Council froze on Arbitrum One on 30 October 2026 after the exploit of Binance's hot wallet. Binance's post dates the freeze 29 October; the Security Council's notice gives 8:08am HKT on 30 October 2026 and states the ETH as 8,425. The proposal was posted on 5 November 2026 and is in forum discussion. It matters because the frozen balance cannot move without a DAO action, and because this is a request to return frozen funds to the party they were taken from, on terms that include a legal process condition and an indemnification undertaking.

Binance's post says the Security Council freeze was part of a wider ecosystem effort that has frozen over $3bn, and that the release requires a governance action from the DAO. The amount in this proposal is the full frozen balance held at the address the funds were moved to, and it goes to a Binance recovery address because, the post says, it was stolen from Binance's wallet.

What it changes

• The recovery is an atomic onchain action with three steps: upgrade the Inbox contract on Ethereum to add a temporary function called sendUnsignedTransactionOverride, issue a transaction that recovers the funds from the frozen address, then upgrade the Inbox contract again to remove the temporary function.
• Frozen address: 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000DA0. Recovery address: 0xd9fd39103674cb061d64d9c3b73b878dbe610b80. Recovered amount: 8,425.997 ETH and 74,559,805.2 ARB.
• The recipient is Binance, which states the returned assets will be applied to the losses and costs arising from the incident, including replenishing the SAFU Fund or treasury reserves used for that purpose.
• No new treasury allocation is requested. The thread states the direct budgetary cost to the DAO is expected to be zero outside normal governance execution overhead.
• A legal condition applies. The proposal will not be submitted onchain, and delivery will not be made, while any restraining notice, writ, order or other legal process prohibiting the transfer is in effect, unless a court of competent jurisdiction has modified or vacated it. Binance says it will hold the assets at the recovery address without transfer or commingling until such a process is vacated or finally resolved, defend any claim to the assets at its own expense, and turn over the assets or their value to any person a court finally determines is entitled to them.
• Before onchain submission, Binance says it will complete the Inbox contract updates and enter into indemnification agreements with the Arbitrum Foundation, Offchain Labs, Inc. and each member of the Security Council. The thread names Nest Exchange Limited, Nest Clearing and Custody Limited and Nest Trading Limited as jointly and severally indemnifying the Arbitrum Foundation, Offchain Labs, the Security Council and their officers, directors, agents, employees, advisers, contractors, representatives and successors.
• Timeline given in the thread: about 49 days in total, made up of one week for forum discussion, one week for the temperature check vote, a two week onchain vote, and around 18 days from the vote concluding until the final transaction payload executes. The thread says the timeline may be extended if any legal process affecting the frozen assets must first be resolved.

The case for it

Binance frames the request as returning assets to their owner: "The released funds will be returned to Binance, from whose wallet they were stolen". It says it is covering users' losses itself and wants to recover the frozen funds through governance: "While Binance is committed to covering all losses from the SAFU Fund and the company’s treasury, we want to take this opportunity to work with Arbitrum Governance and recover the funds frozen by the Arbitrum Security Council." And it states its own interest plainly: "Binance is submitting this proposal because we are affected by this incident and the funds will aid the recovery process for our users."

Where it stands

The thread had six posts as of 8 November 2026, the first from Binance and five replies. @Zeptimus, @SEEDGov, @Axia, @dzack23 and @Griff each replied in support, and @Axia singled out the legal safeguard, saying the proposal appropriately makes both onchain submission and delivery conditional on there being no blocking legal process, unless a court has modified or vacated that process.

As of 8 November 2026 no vote has been held, and no Snapshot temperature check has opened. The proposal names its own sequence: first, a Snapshot temperature check after forum discussion; second, before onchain submission, Binance completes the Inbox updates and enters into the indemnification agreements; third, subject to the legal process condition, the proposal proceeds through Arbitrum's Constitutional AIP lifecycle, including the applicable waiting periods, message finalization and final execution. The proposal asks whether ARB tokenholders support the release on the terms it describes.