{"id":96805,"date":"2026-05-05T10:34:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=96805"},"modified":"2026-05-05T10:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:35:17","slug":"aave-seeks-court-order-to-release-30000-eth-seized-by-hackers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/aave-seeks-court-order-to-release-30000-eth-seized-by-hackers\/","title":{"rendered":"Aave Seeks Court Order to Release 30,000 ETH Seized by Hackers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The team behind the leading lending protocol Aave has filed an emergency motion in a US federal court to lift the freeze on 30,766 ETH ($73 million). These funds were <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/arbitrum-freezes-30766-eth-amid-probe-into-kelp-hack\">blocked<\/a> by the Arbitrum Security Council following the Kelp hack.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Aave LLC has filed an emergency motion to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO on May 1, 2026 that attempts to seize approximately $71 million in ETH belonging to victims of the April 18 exploit.<\/p>\n<p>A thief does not gain lawful ownership of stolen property simply by\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NwgKIdU1L7\">pic.twitter.com\/NwgKIdU1L7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Aave (@aave) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aave\/status\/2051329772190347560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 4, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In early May, the DAO of the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-layer%e2%80%912-solution-in-blockchain\">L2<\/a> network <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/arbitrum-dao-to-vote-on-71-million-transfer-to-defi-united-fund\">initiated<\/a> a vote to transfer the funds to the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/defi-protocols-muster-tens-of-thousands-of-eth-to-shore-up-aave\">DeFi United<\/a> fund. The Southern District of New York court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/new-york-court-bars-arbitrum-from-unfreezing-30000-stolen-eth\">prohibited<\/a> the use of these funds at the request of plaintiffs linked to past North Korean terrorism cases.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-da38656e2fbae93b-3567640643480642.webp\" alt=\"image\" class=\"wp-image-279549\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Amount of funds collected by DeFi United as of May 5. Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/defiunited.world\/\">DeFi United<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The plaintiffs seek to have the ETH recognized as part of potential restitution. Their position is based on the assumption that the attack on Kelp was orchestrated by the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/lazarus-group-what-we-know-about-the-outfit-suspected-of-the-bybit-hack\">Lazarus Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Aave&#8217;s Position<\/h2>\n<p>Aave has described the court&#8217;s reasoning as legally unsound.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cA thief does not own what they have stolen. These funds belong to the users from whom they were taken, and no one else,\u201d stated the protocol&#8217;s founder, Stani Kulechov.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He explained that even temporary control over stolen funds does not transform them into the property of the perpetrator, nor does it provide grounds to consider them assets of North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>The project demanded the complete lifting of the asset freeze or that the plaintiffs post a security bond of at least $300 million to cover potential damages from further blocking.<\/p>\n<p>Aave believes that prolonged retention of the coins under court seizure jeopardizes the entire recovery mechanism following the hack and delays compensation to affected users.<\/p>\n<p>The vote in the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-dao-decentralised-autonomous-organisation\">Arbitrum DAO<\/a> will conclude on May 7. At the time of publication, over 99% of participants support transferring the assets to DeFi United.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-31f3a9e30be08dc3-3567661117720427.webp\" alt=\"image\" class=\"wp-image-279550\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/snapshot.org\/#\/s:arbitrumfoundation.eth\/proposal\/0xb32581468bece42245fa267ea86156a621ae77f61bb866118189b5d50155b051\/votes\">snapshot.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Back in April, Arbitrum&#8217;s tech council member Griff Green <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/arbitrum-council-member-calls-for-usdc-boycott\">called for<\/a> a boycott of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-the-usdc-stablecoin\">USDC<\/a> due to weak security systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Aave team filed an emergency motion in a US federal court to lift the freeze on 30,766 ETH blocked by Arbitrum after the Kelp hack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Aave seeks court order to release 30,000 ETH seized by hackers.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1212,1335,1162,1093,1202],"class_list":["post-96805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-aave","tag-arbitrum-arb","tag-court-cases","tag-defi","tag-north-korea-dprk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"14","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Aave seeks court order to release 30,000 ETH seized by hackers.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96807,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805\/revisions\/96807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}