Arkham Intelligence

Last updated
Arkham Intelligence
IndustryBlockchain data
Crypto analytics
Founded2020
FounderMiguel Morel
ServicesWeb application
Website www.arkhamintelligence.com

Arkham Intelligence is a public data application that enables users to analyze blockchain and cryptocurrency activity. Founded by Miguel Morel in 2020, the company's platform utilizes AI to identify and catalog the owners of blockchain addresses. [1]

Arkham was the first company to identify wallets owned by digital asset ETFs. [2] Its partners include TradingView, Polygon, and Avalanche. [3] [4] [5]

History

Morel founded Arkham in 2020 and received investments from Tim Draper, Joe Lonsdale of Palantir Technologies, and a co-founder of OpenAI. [1]

In July 2022, during the midst of Celsius Network’s bankruptcy, Arkham found that Celsius owed over $500 million worth of digital assets to three of the biggest DeFi lenders, including Aave Protocol; it was also reported that Celsius worked with a previously unidentified fund manager to purchase NFTs and make deposits on yield-bearing decentralized exchanges. [6] [7] [8]

Arkham reported on a hacker who stole approximately $477 million worth of tokens from FTX and sent 180,000 Ethereum (ETH) coins to at least a dozen digital wallets in November 2022. Arkham analysts noted that the hacker followed two patterns: operating between 08:00 and 10:00 UTC and creating new accounts for each operation. [9]

In December 2022, Arkham tracked over $1 million of transferred funds tied to former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried as well as $1.7 million worth of cryptocurrencies liquidated within a 24-hour time span. [10] [11]

Arkham provided data in January 2023 that identified “an alleged nexus of money laundering” from Bitzlato through intermediate wallets of Binance. Over the course of several years, it was found that the intermediary wallet deposited $15 million worth of crypto onto Binance's platform. [12] That same month, Arkham released a report which revealed that Alameda liquidators lost $72,000 worth of crypto while trying to recover funds as part of FTX's bankruptcy. [13]

In January 2024, Arkham tracked over $1 million worth of bitcoin sent to Satoshi Nakamoto; this was the first reported activity from Nakamoto since December 2010. [14] This data was used by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, who filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried for his role in FTX's collapse. [14]

In February 2024, Arkham publicly identified nearly $1 billion transferred from wallets seized by the U.S. government as part of the Bitfinex hack. [15]

Other notable blockchain identifications include: Donald Trump, [16] Robinhood, [17] Tesla, SpaceX, [18] and Justin Sun. [19]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of bitcoin</span> Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a digital asset that uses cryptography to control its creation and management rather than relying on central authorities. Originally designed as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin is now primarily regarded as a store of value. The history of bitcoin started with its invention and implementation by Satoshi Nakamoto, who integrated many existing ideas from the cryptography community. Over the course of bitcoin's history, it has undergone rapid growth to become a significant store of value both on- and offline. From the mid-2010s, some businesses began accepting bitcoin in addition to traditional currencies.

CoinDesk is a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies. Founded by Shakil Khan, the firm also provides guides to bitcoin for those new to digital currencies.

Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange owned and operated by iFinex Inc, and is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Bitfinex was founded in 2012. It was originally a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange, and later added support for other cryptocurrencies.

A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification, or legally signing a 'document'.

A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.

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Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, is an American entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud and related crimes in November 2023. Bankman-Fried founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and was celebrated as a "poster boy" for crypto. At the peak of his net worth, he was ranked the 41st-richest American in the Forbes 400.

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FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX, is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a fraud-ridden cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang. At its peak in July 2021, the company had over one million users and was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. As of November 2022, FTX was the third-largest digital currency exchange boasting an active trading volume of USD 10 billion and a valuation of USD 32 billion. FTX is incorporated in Antigua and Barbuda and headquartered in the Bahamas. FTX is closely associated with FTX.US, a separate exchange available to US residents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celsius Network</span> American cryptocurrency company

Celsius Network LLC was a cryptocurrency company. Headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, Celsius maintained offices in four countries and operated globally. Users could deposit a range of cryptocurrency digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, into a Celsius wallet to earn a percentage yield, and could take out loans by pledging their cryptocurrencies as security. As of May 2022, the company had lent out $8 billion to clients and had almost $12 billion in assets under management.

The Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in August 2016. 119,756 bitcoin, worth about US$72 million at the time, were stolen.

Alameda Research was a cryptocurrency trading firm, co-founded in September 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Tara Mac Aulay. In November 2022, FTX, Alameda's sister cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a solvency crisis, and both FTX and Alameda filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That same month, anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal that FTX had lent more than half of its customers' funds to Alameda, which was explicitly forbidden by FTX's terms-of-service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlockFi</span> Defunct digital asset lender

BlockFi was a digital asset lender founded by Zac Prince and Flori Marquez in 2017. It was based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was once valued at $3 billion.

The bankruptcy of FTX, a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, began in November 2022. The collapse of FTX, caused by a spike in customer withdrawals that exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts, served as the impetus for its bankruptcy. Prior to its collapse, FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume and had over one million users.

Gary Wang is an American computer programmer who co-founded the crypto currency exchange FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried. At the height of his success in 2022, Wang was ranked the 227th richest American in the Forbes 400, and the 431st richest person in the world by The World's Billionaires. After FTX collapsed into bankruptcy, caused by massive fraud perpetrated by Wang, Bankman-Fried and a few others, Wang plea bargained a guilty charge in exchange for testifying against his former college roommate and business partner, Bankman-Fried. Before co-founding FTX, Wang worked at Google Flights, building systems for the aggregation of ticket prices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coffeezilla</span> American YouTuber

Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, is an American YouTuber and crypto journalist who is known primarily for his channel in which he investigates and discusses online scams, usually surrounding cryptocurrency, decentralized finance and internet celebrities. Before Coffeezilla, Findeisen was active on YouTube with the channel Coffee Break between 2017 and 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Voorhees</span>

Erik Tristan Voorhees is an American cryptocurrency entrepreneur and founder of the cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift. He also co-founded Satoshi Dice and was the Director of Marketing at BitInstant. He has been referred to as a crypto-libertarian and has advocated for "the separation of money and state".

References

  1. 1 2 Nina Bambysheva (July 24, 2023). "This Startup Wants To Deanonymize Blockchain. Privacy Advocates Are Furious". Forbes. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  2. ↑ Jamie Redman (January 24, 2024). "Arkham Reveals Onchain Addresses Linked to 4 Major Bitcoin ETFs, Boosting Market Transparency". Bitcoin.com. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Arkham Intel Teams Up with TradingView to Enhance Crypto Analytics and Insights". BSCN. August 23, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  4. ↑ Rony Roy (January 26, 2023). "Arkham Intelligence to Add Support for Polygon in 2023". Coin Edition. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  5. ↑ "Top Crypto Projects in the Avalanche Ecosystem for 2024". KUCOIN. February 27, 2024. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  6. ↑ Maria Gracia Santillana Linares (July 14, 2022). "Celsius Seeks Bankruptcy Protection After Reclaiming Collateral". Forbes. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  7. ↑ Nina Bambysheva (July 13, 2022). "Celsius Has Paid Its Debts To DeFi's Biggest Lenders, Reclaiming Over $1 Billion In Collateral". Forbes. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  8. ↑ Bryce Elder (July 8, 2022). "Crypto lender Celsius sued by its own 'hapless' money manager". Financial Times. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  9. ↑ Nina Bambysheva (November 21, 2022). "FTX Hacker Moved Nearly $200 Million Of Ether To Different Wallets". Forbes. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  10. ↑ Allyson Versprille; Ava Benny-Morrison (December 30, 2022). "US Is Said to Examine Crypto Wallets Linked to Sam Bankman-Fried". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  11. ↑ Brian Evans (December 29, 2022). "Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research sells $1.7 million in crypto amid bankruptcy and still holds over $112 million in tokens". Markets Insider. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  12. ↑ Rohan Goswami; MacKenzie Sigalos (January 19, 2023). "Binance was final destination for millions in funds from Bitzlato, exchange shut down for alleged money laundering". CNBC. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  13. ↑ Morgan Chittum (January 13, 2023). "Alameda liquidators just lost $72,000 on a DeFi lending platform while trying to recover funds for creditors, analytics firm says". Markets Insider. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  14. 1 2 Billy Bambrough (January 7, 2024). "'Satoshi Woke Up'—Legend Of Bitcoin's Mystery Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Suddenly Deepens". Forbes. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  15. ↑ Bradley Keoun (February 28, 2024). "U.S. Government Crypto Wallets Transfer Nearly $1B of Bitcoin Seized From Bitfinex Hacker". Coin Desk. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  16. ↑ "Donald Trump Sells $2.4 Million Ethereum: Arkham Intelligence". Crypto Rank. December 27, 2023. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  17. ↑ Joe Light (August 28, 2023). "Robinhood Is a Bitcoin Whale. What It Means for the Stock". Barrons. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  18. ↑ James Hunt (March 7, 2024). "Arkham claims to identify Tesla and SpaceX's Bitcoin addresses holding nearly 20,000 BTC". The Block. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  19. ↑ Nina Bambysheva (February 27, 2023). "Liquid Staking Takes DeFi By Storm With $240 Million Lido Inflow, Apparently From Justin Sun". Forbes. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
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