Arbitrum Haults New Stylus Contract Activations to Prevent AI-Assisted Attacks

Arbitrum has taken a precautionary measure to prevent potential attacks on its One and Nova networks. New Stylus contract activations have been temporarily halted, affecting programs that need their first activation and updates to applications. This restriction applies only to new activations, and existing applications and Solidity contracts continue to work without issue. Developers can still extend existing programs through a permissionless renewal process, but cannot activate expired programs or new application versions. The move aims to address a potential threat to WebAssembly programs built with nonstandard Stylus compiler toolchains, specifically disruption to on-chain activity and denial-of-service attacks. No risk of stolen funds has been identified. Stylus allows developers to build programs for Arbitrum using WebAssembly, and the restriction only applies to new activations on both networks.