Arbitrum voters have approved a proposal to release 30,765.67 ETH frozen after last month's rsETH exploit into the coordinated recovery effort backed by Aave Labs, KelpDAO, LayerZero, EtherFi, and Compound.

What passed

Snapshot results show the measure closed with about 182.2 million ARB voting for, just 1,738 ARB against, and roughly 18.1 million ARB abstaining. The underlying forum proposal says the ETH would go toward making affected rsETH holders whole and restoring the asset's backing after Arbitrum's Security Council immobilized the funds during the exploit response.

Why the ETH will not move right away

Approval does not mean immediate release. The proposal was framed as a Constitutional AIP, and its published timeline includes an 8-day L2 waiting period before later cross-chain finalization and execution steps. That matters because the frozen ETH is also part of an active court dispute in New York.

Aave's May 4 court filing asks a federal judge to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO by judgment creditors pursuing North Korea-related claims. Aave argues the assets should instead support victims of the exploit and warns that longer delays could deepen damage for users and DeFi markets still absorbing the rsETH fallout.

The clearest verified takeaway is that Arbitrum governance has now endorsed the release, but the actual transfer still depends on legal and execution steps outside the vote itself.