Leading decentralized lending platform Aave has asked a U.S. federal court to block an attempt by victims of North Korean terrorism to seize about $71 million in crypto frozen after last month’s rsETH-related exploit, escalating a dispute that has already split Arbitrum’s governance.

The filing, submitted Monday in the Southern District of New York, seeks to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO by lawyers representing judgment creditors of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Aave argues the assets belong to users of its protocol, not North Korea, and warns that keeping them frozen risks “irreparable harm” to the platform and the broader DeFi ecosystem.

At the center of the fight is 30,765 ETH that