Arbitrum’s ARB Extends Weekly Slide After Security Council Takes Emergency Action

Arbitrum’s license fees brought in about $4.75 million or 87% of the total revenue, while transaction fees contributed $507,000, and treasury income amounted to $181,000.

• ARB has fallen 12% in the past week despite rising 47% in the past month.
• The Arbitrum Security Council halted new Stylus contract activations on Arbitrum One and Nova due to increasingly sophisticated attacks.
• The Foundation said no vulnerability that could steal user funds has been found, so existing Stylus contracts remain live.

Arbitrum (ARB) extended its one-week drop after emergency action by the network’s Security Council. The token traded in the red on Sunday, down about 12% in seven days.

In a report on the action, the Arbitrum Foundation said the Council paused new Stylus contract activations on Arbitrum One and Nova on Thursday. It moved at 11:30 a.m. ET. Live contracts continue to run. None of them mature before Aug. 20, 2027, the Foundation said.

The pause applies to new contracts and apps that require a new activation to update. The Foundation said it is going after hand-built WebAssembly programs that circumvent the normal Stylus toolchain. It said such AI-assisted tools have made attacks on those programs more sophisticated. 

Known bugs in Stylus mostly threaten the chain’s uptime, such as denial-of-service attacks. The Foundation said no attack that would allow someone to steal user funds has been found so far.

While ARB has been up over 47% in the past month, Arbitrum’s price was down over 0.6% over the past 24 hours, defying broader market strength as Bitcoin's price climbed past $85,000.  On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around ARB remained in the ‘bearish’ zone with chatter at ‘low’ levels over the last day.

Settlement Guard Added

The same action allowed for a safety net to materialize in the BoLD dispute mechanism on Arbitrum One. Any party can trigger it in situations when two contradictory responses are accepted with one proof. Meanwhile, Arbitrum One will remain operational, the Foundation said. 

Unconfirmed withdrawals would have to wait until the settlement resumes. The foundation added that it will work with the Arbitrum Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) on when and how to reopen new activations. It said the community still sees value in Stylus.

Arbitrum Revenue Surges Fivefold

However, Arbitrum’s ecosystem remains strong. Arbitrum reported on Thursday that its monthly revenue had increased by about five times. Licensing fees brought in $4.75 million, or about 87% of the total, while transaction fees added about $507,000, and treasury income contributed about $181,000. The network also said it had processed 1.5 billion new transactions so far this year. 

The Arbitrum Foundation said in a first-half report published Sept. 2 that income of $6.19 million accrued to the ArbitrumDAO in the six months to June 30. In mid-September, Geoff Kendrick of Standard Chartered predicted Arbitrum’s monthly revenue could reach approximately $5 million in September at the current run rate, calling it "hugely undervalued”.

ARB’s price has been up over 7% so far this year, but down over 53% in the last 12 months.

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