Arbitrum Security Council Member: Blockchains Run on Social Consensus, Not Pure Immutability

Griff Green, a member of the Arbitrum Security Council, is pushing back on a common misconception: blockchains are not absolutely immutable. Drawing on his early involvement with The DAO — one of crypto's most consequential governance crises — Green argues that any chain's rules can be changed as long as the community reaches sufficient social consensus.

The context matters here. Arbitrum recently deployed a multi-sig mechanism to freeze funds during a live crisis, marking the first time a major Layer 2 network has taken such a proactive step. Green frames this not as a departure from blockchain principles, but as an expression of them — governance by collective agreement has always been the underlying layer beneath the code.