Arbitrum Froze $70M From North Korea? Griff Green on the Decision + Miguel Morel on the Hack

KelpDAO’s hackers left telltale signs pointing to one culprit, North Korea. Then, in a surprise move, the Arbitrum Security Council decided to fight back.

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In this episode about the hack on KelpDAO that had a broad impact across all of DeFi, Miguel Morel of Arkham, explains what digital fingerprints made it clear North Korea was the likely hacker, plus how it is that Arkham’s users are using the platform to figure out how to get their bad debt out of Aave and when.

Then Griff Green, a member of the Arbitrum Security Council, explains some of the reasoning that went into the decision to freeze $71 million of the funds stolen by DPRK, how the surprise move worked technically, and why blockchains are immutable only by social consensus — and how even Bitcoin could be changed by social consensus.

Host:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

• Miguel Morel, CEO of Arkham Intelligence

• Griff Green, Arbitrum Security Council Member, Leader of the DAO Security Fund, Co-founder of Giveth

Timestamps 🎤 0:00 Introduction: Griff's history with the DAO hack and how he joined the Security Council 🔑 0:53 How North Korea's 48-hour pause made the Arbitrum freeze possible ⚙️ 5:09 Forced inclusion: how an L1 transaction froze funds without touching a single node 🏛️ 8:01 What the Arbitrum Security Council is and who's on it 🤔 14:31 Why Griff initially opposed the freeze and what changed his mind 🗣️ 19:17 Why social consensus, not immutability, is blockchain's real accountability layer ⚖️ 26:23 How the crypto community has responded and what Gabe Shapiro got right 🛡️ 34:31 Why Ethereum is secure but not safe, and the DAO Security Fund's mission

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