Arkham: Crypto Analytics Platform and Data Tracking Dashboard

  1. Project Introduction

Arkham is a cryptocurrency analysis platform and data tracking dashboard designed to easily monitor on-chain activities of various blockchain entities, providing in-depth market analysis, transaction data, and a comprehensive review of cryptocurrency projects.

The platform enables users to search for people, funds, exchanges, and ENS addresses by name to get an overview of their recent activities, or search for specific addresses to obtain similar insights. The data obtained can be used for a variety of purposes, including trade decisions, trend prediction, risk management, and early threat detection, better helping investors, researchers, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts to better understand market dynamics, identify investment opportunities, and track the performance of crypto assets.

Arkham aims to increase transparency and level the playing field for cryptocurrency traders and enthusiasts by providing data that was previously only available to blockchain analysts and enthusiasts. The platform uses artificial intelligence to collect, classify and display a large amount of on-chain data through the Arkham dashboard. Its proprietary AI address matching engine called Ultra can automatically connect on-chain addresses to real-world identities.

In addition, Arkham has also introduced a token system that allows users to submit rewards in Arkham (ARKM) tokens through the Arkham Intel Exchange trading market to find out the on-chain data intelligence they want, such as tracing the identity of a user at a certain wallet address. On-chain data analysts who have content that they think is important can also sell this information through this platform for interested users to bid. This transaction data will be exclusively owned by the purchaser for up to 90 days and will be made public after the expiration date.

  2. Core Mechanism

As a cryptocurrency analysis platform, Arkham's core mechanism mainly revolves around data collection, processing, analysis and presentation.

Among them, Arkham Intelligence is an important part of the core mechanism. The organization has developed a proprietary artificial intelligence algorithm address matching engine called Ultra, which can extract intelligence from today's huge network of activities. The technology manages on-chain and off-chain data from multiple sources (and multiple chains) and links blockchain addresses to real-world entities, providing a complete picture of entities using cryptocurrencies and their activities.

Purpose and Functionality of Ultra:

• De-anonymization: Ultra's primary purpose is to overcome the anonymity inherent in blockchain transactions. While blockchain transactions are public, they are often represented by anonymous addresses, which makes it difficult to understand the entities behind these transactions. Ultra systematically processes this data to identify and reveal the real-world entities behind blockchain addresses, such as individuals, companies, or institutions.

• Data Synthesis: Ultra collects and synthesizes on-chain and off-chain data from multiple sources. This process involves collecting transaction history, wallet addresses, token movements, and other relevant data points on different blockchain networks.

• AI Analysis: Using advanced AI and machine learning algorithms, Ultra analyzes collected data to find patterns, connections, and identifiers that can link anonymous blockchain addresses to identifiable entities. This may involve analyzing transaction behavior, network interactions, and other digital footprints that entities leave on the blockchain.

Ultra’s Key Features and Benefits:

• Accuracy and Scalability: One of Ultra’s key features is its ability to efficiently process large amounts of data, maintaining a high level of accuracy when matching addresses to entities. This scalability is critical given the extensive and growing nature of blockchain databases.

• Real-time Data Processing: Ultra is designed to operate in real-time, providing up-to-date insights and intelligence. This capability is critical for users who rely on timely information to make trading decisions, assess risk, or conduct research.

• Comprehensive blockchain coverage: While many analytics platforms may focus on a single blockchain, Ultra’s design allows it to aggregate and analyze data across multiple blockchain networks. This multi-chain approach ensures a more comprehensive understanding of the blockchain ecosystem, reflecting the interconnected nature of today’s cryptocurrency markets.

• Enhanced market insights: By de-anonymizing blockchain addresses, Ultra provides users with deeper insights into market dynamics. Understanding the actions and strategies of major players in the cryptocurrency space can provide significant advantages in trading, investing, and risk management.

In addition, Profiler is also the core platform that underpins Arkham’s products. It acts as a central hub for accessing detailed insights into the transaction history, asset holdings, financial performance, and interaction patterns of blockchain participants. By aggregating and presenting a wide range of data points, Profiler enables users to conduct in-depth analysis of an entity, enhancing their ability to make informed decisions, conduct research, or monitor market movements.

Key Features of Profiler:

• Transaction History: Users can view the complete transaction history of an entity or address, including incoming and outgoing transactions. This history can be filtered and sorted based on various criteria, such as USD value, specific tokens, counterparties, and time frames, providing a detailed understanding of trading behavior.

• Portfolio Holding: Profiler displays the current portfolio holdings of an entity or address, broken down by individual assets. It provides insights into asset distribution, concentration, and specific cryptocurrency exposure.

• Balance History: Users can track the historical balances of an entity or address over time. This feature helps understand how the total asset value of an entity has evolved, highlighting periods of large accumulation or divestment.

• Profit and Loss: By analyzing transactions and portfolio changes, Profiler can estimate the profit and loss of an entity or address. This estimate is critical to evaluating financial performance and the effectiveness of investment strategies.

• Exchange Usage: This tool provides data about an entity or address’s interactions with exchanges, detailing deposit and withdrawal activity. This information is critical for understanding an entity’s liquidity management and risk exposure.

• Major Counterparties: It identifies and lists the major counterparties with which an entity or address has transacted. Such insights are valuable in uncovering relationships and networks within a blockchain ecosystem.

Benefits of Profiler:

• Comprehensive Analysis: By integrating various data points into a single interface, Profiler allows users to conduct a thorough analysis of an entity or address without having to access multiple tools or platforms.

• Real-time Insight: The real-time nature of Profiler data ensures that users have access to the latest information, allowing them to react quickly to market changes or new developments.

• Strategic Decision-making: With detailed transaction history and financial performance data, users can better understand the strategies employed by entities on the blockchain. This understanding can inform their own investment decisions, risk assessments, and research efforts.

• Market Transparency: By making it easier to analyze the actions and positions of blockchain participants, Profiler helps to increase market transparency. This transparency can level the playing field for market participants and foster a healthier trading environment.

• Customization and Alerts: Users can customize their views and set alerts for specific activities or thresholds, making Profiler a versatile tool tailored to individual analytical needs and preferences.

Meanwhile, filtering capabilities allow users to sort and navigate results based on specific metrics, simplifying the task of finding the data they need.

Separately, Arkham Intel Exchange is an innovative component of Arkham Intelligence that serves as a decentralized marketplace for buying and selling crypto-related intelligence. The platform utilizes the native token ARKM as a medium of exchange to facilitate the exchange of actionable insights and data between users. Arkham Intel Exchange aims to democratize access to valuable crypto intelligence, not only to large institutions with vast resources, but also to individual traders and analysts.

Functions and features of Arkham Intel Exchange:

• Decentralized intelligence market: The exchange operates in a decentralized model, allowing users to interact directly without the need for a central authority. This setup promotes transparency and fairness while reducing the risks associated with centralized platforms.

• Bounty system for intelligence requests: Users seeking specific intelligence can post a bounty on the exchange, specifying the information they need and the amount of ARKM they are willing to pay. Other users can then fulfill these requests to earn bounties. The system incentivizes the collection and sharing of targeted intelligence.

• Intelligence Auctions: Users with valuable crypto-intelligence can auction it off to the highest bidder. This feature enables individuals with unique insights, data, or analysis to effectively monetize their knowledge.

• Intel-to-Earn Model: The exchange has introduced an Intel-to-earn model that rewards users for their contributions to the ecosystem. Whether by fulfilling bounty requests or participating in auctions, contributors can earn ARKM tokens, encouraging active participation and the continued growth of the platform's intelligence pool.

• Smart Contract-Based Transactions: All transactions on the Arkham Intel Exchange, including bounties and auctions, are conducted through smart contracts. This approach ensures transparency, security, and trust, as the terms are programmatically enforced and cannot be tampered with.

• Exclusive Access Period: Purchased intelligence is initially available for exclusive use by the purchaser for a predetermined period, after which it may become publicly available on the Arkham Platform. This period of exclusivity enables the purchaser to maximize the value of the intelligence they acquire.

Arkham Intel Exchange Impact and Benefits:

• Improved Market Efficiency: By facilitating the exchange of intelligence, Arkham Intel Exchange facilitates more informed decisions across the crypto markets. This, in turn, improves efficiency and reduces information asymmetry.

• Empowerment of Individual Participants: The platform levels the playing field by providing individual traders and analysts with access to high-quality intelligence that was previously only available to well-resourced entities.

• Incentives for knowledge sharing: Through a reward system, the exchange encourages users to share their insights and analysis, creating a collaborative environment where information is more freely accessible.

• Enhanced transparency and trust: The decentralized nature of the exchange, combined with the use of smart contracts, enhances trust between participants. Users can participate with confidence, knowing that the platform's mechanisms ensure fairness and transparency.

  3. ARKM

The ARKM token is a core element in the Arkham Intelligence ecosystem, designed to facilitate the acquisition, sharing, and trading of crypto intelligence. As a native token, ARKM plays a vital role on the Arkham Intel Exchange, not only as a medium of exchange, but also as a catalyst for the formation of a decentralized economy centered on intelligence.

ARKM token functions:

• Intelligence Trading: ARKM tokens are used to buy and sell cryptocurrency-related intelligence on the Arkham Intel Exchange. Users can use ARKM to post intelligence rewards or purchase intelligence shared by others.

• Incentive Mechanism: The Arkham ecosystem encourages users to share valuable intelligence through an intel-to-earn model. Users receive ARKM tokens as rewards by providing intelligence, completing bounty tasks, or selling intelligence in intelligence auctions.

• Governance: ARKM token holders may participate in the governance decisions of the platform, such as voting on platform updates, intelligence verification standards, and bounty policies.

• Transaction Fees: When trading on the Arkham Intel Exchange, ARKM tokens may be used to pay related fees, including but not limited to bounty posting fees, transaction fees, or other possible platform service fees.

ARKM Token Features:

• Decentralization:As a blockchain-based token, ARKM supports decentralized transactions and economic activities, reduces dependence on centralized exchanges, and improves the security and transparency of transactions.

• Community Driven:ARKM is designed to encourage community members to actively participate in the development of the platform and jointly shape the future of the Arkham ecosystem by sharing high-quality intelligence, voting decisions, etc.

• Transparency and Security:The transaction mechanism based on smart contracts ensures the transparency and security of ARKM transactions. All transactions are recorded on the blockchain and can be publicly verified, reducing the risk of fraud.

There are 1 billion ARKMs in total, which are allocated as follows: 37.3%: used to maintain the ecosystem; 20%: reserved for core contributors; 17.5%: reserved for investors; 17.2%: used as foundation funds; 5%: used for Binance Launchpad; 3%: reserved for advisors.

The initial circulation of tokens is 15%, and all tokens will be in circulation after seven years. The tokens of investors, core contributors, and advisors will be locked within one year of launch, and then gradually unlocked over the next three years. The total unlocking period for ecosystem tokens is five years, and the unlocking period for foundation fund tokens is seven years. As of now, the price of ARKM token is $2.24, the market cap is $459,060,903, the ranking is #175, and the volume/market cap ratio is 10.06%. This high ratio may indicate greater trading activity in the market or greater volatility in the price discovery process. If the entire supply of ARKM tokens were calculated at the current price, the market cap would be approximately $2,243,699,429.

  4. Team/Financing Situation

Arkham was founded by Miguel Morel in 2020, who is also one of the co-founders of the algorithmic stablecoin project Reserve Protocol and is currently the CEO of Arkham.

According to the Arkham official website, they received more than $12 million in Series A financing, and investors include one of the anonymous founders of OpenAI, which created the 2023 AI craze product ChatGPT, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Geoff Lewis, founder of venture capital firm Bedrock, and Tim Draper, founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and other industry elites.

So far, Arkham's strategic partners include: Base, BNB Chain, Polygon, Optimism, etc. By establishing important strategic partnerships with these well-known companies, Arkham has expanded its coverage in the Ethereum blockchain and other fields.

  5. Strengths and Controversies

Arkham’s analytical products have played a notable role in resolving high-profile crypto incidents in the past.

• Recovering Assets for Alameda Research

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Arkham Intelligence found that the liquidator responsible for recovering assets after the collapse of hedge fund Alameda Research had controlled 34.94 Bitcoins (BTC), worth about $110 million at the time. The Arkham report shows that as of March 2023, multiple wallets have been receiving BTC from exchanges and cold wallets.

• Euler hacker funds are gradually being recovered

According to Coin Desk, in April 2023, Arkham Intelligence was able to track the gradual return of approximately $200 million stolen by hackers from the lending protocol Euler Finance. Analysis showed that the vulnerability exploited a combination of dai (DAI), wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), staked Ethereum (sETH), and USD Coin (USDC). As Euler and hackers negotiated a solution, Arkham's analysis was used to monitor the batch return of funds.

However, in addition to the good news, Arkham also caused some controversy.

• Users’ emails were exposed by invitation code links

Arkham previously launched a referral function, allowing users to invite others to join Arkham through the generated invitation code link. However, after Arkham announced the release of the airdrop on July 10, some netizens posted on Twitter that they found that the code of the invitation link could be easily deciphered, exposing the user’s email address, causing dissatisfaction in the cryptocurrency community.

These codes are generated by encoding the user’s email in Base64. As long as you use free tools on the Internet to reverse decode, you can see the referrer’s email address. This makes the email addresses of many netizens who publicly send code links through social media platforms actually invisible.

After the incident, Miguel Morel explained on Twitter that the system of code links was created during the Beta testing of the system in order to allow them to reward those users who assisted in the promotion through their email addresses. The company did not use emails for any other purpose except for sending communication emails and giving rewards through email addresses. In addition, when the recommended users first opened the link, they could also see the email of the inviter, so that they knew that the inviter was a real Arkham user.

However, Morel admitted that as the user base increased, they needed to change the way the links were generated. They have updated the mechanism, and in the future all generated links will encrypt the user's email, making it impossible to reversely deduce.

• Accused of violating user privacy by making money through human flesh search

A major feature of the cryptocurrency industry has always been anonymity, but Arkham has always advocated "de-anonymization" and mentioned in the white paper that "unprocessed and anonymous raw transaction data is useless", so it launched the above-mentioned service. However, the Arkham Intel Exchange platform, which allows users to buy and sell intelligence, has also attracted criticism from many privacy-conscious cryptocurrency users who oppose the use of "human flesh search" to make money.

AAVE Dao founder Mark Zeller said on Twitter: "Human flesh search is not cool. I am very disappointed with your garbage coin that sells out the values ​​of the entire ecosystem. This will bring a lot of harm."

Cryptocurrency investment blogger Scott Melker also opposed the idea that the Arkham project is reasonable and ethical on his Twitter account called The Wolf Of All Streets, and believed that the currency circle should move in a more privacy-oriented direction instead of going backwards in the opposite direction.

However, there is another view that this feature of Arkham will help combat common hacking problems in the currency circle. According to a report by Chain Analysis, as much as $3.8 billion was stolen from currency investors in 2022, a record high.

• Suspected of being linked to the US government

One ​​of Arkham’s investors is Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of the big data company Palantir. Since one of Palantir’s major clients is the US government, and Palantir assists them in counter-terrorism work, the Arkham project is also suspected to be related to the US Central Intelligence Agency or other government agencies, raising suspicions of privacy violations.

Arkham denied the allegation in a statement, emphasizing that it is not a secret project of the US government and has no connection with any government agency.

  6. Future Development Analysis

As an early adopter of crypto intelligence technology and an innovator in the field, Arkham can benefit from the growth of the crypto intelligence field, building on its experience as new entrants carve out a position in the market.

If global cryptocurrency does gain adoption, intelligence could become a force for competitive advantage. Users have access to increasingly sophisticated and creative insight tools that help them make smarter decisions on trade entry and exit, asset selection, identifying patterns, and more. At the same time, exchanges and other platforms can more deeply integrate crypto intelligence into their functionality as a strategy to attract traders with more attractive offerings.

Exploring growth from a cybersecurity perspective, many believe that mass cryptocurrency adoption will bring a greater demand for rock-solid security. Of course, if transparency is used to deter malicious behavior, new applications of crypto intelligence can provide better security for everyone.

In summary, although Arkham is a potential platform that can be used to help track hacker data, it is not difficult to understand that this is not good news for big players in the cryptocurrency circle, so it can be said to be a double-edged sword. It is still difficult to judge how much impact Arkham will have on the industry, and only time will tell us the answer.