Arkham, a company specializing in blockchain intelligence, made headlines on July 10 with the announcement of the world’s first on-chain intelligence exchange.
Simultaneously, they introduced a new coin called ARKM through Binance’s Launchpad service.
The reaction on Crypto Twitter has been divided, with some expressing concern about Arkham’s goal of “deanonymizing the blockchain,” leading to criticisms of the company being seen as a centralized intelligence agency.
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Arkham emphasized the positive potential of their Intel Exchange as a means for blockchain sleuths to act as information brokers.
However, experts are apprehensive about potential misuses resulting from the exchange’s proposed business model. Arkham’s plan allows users to post and accept bounties anonymously for information related to blockchain transactions.
The entity that initiates a bounty will have exclusive access to the data for 90 days upon completion. After this initial period, Arkham intends to release the data to the public.
Some commentators raised concerns about how a bounty marketplace could make wealthy individuals susceptible to targeting.
They questioned whether Arkham had taken this into account during their planning.
Controversy surrounding Arkham grew when it was accused of leaking the email addresses of users who signed up for their waitlist and shared the link on social media.
It was discovered that the web form encoded the user’s email address in a simple BASE64 format, allowing easy association of an email address with the corresponding Twitter account.
This raised speculation that the encoding was intentional rather than an oversight.
A Twitter user claimed that the alleged doxing was deliberate, suggesting that Arkham’s ultimate goal was to reveal the identities of prominent players in the blockchain space.
The user implied that Arkham intentionally made it easy to decode the email addresses via the referral link.
In summary, Arkham’s announcement of the world’s first on-chain intelligence exchange and the launch of ARKM coin has garnered a mixed response from the crypto community.
While some recognize the potential benefits of the exchange, concerns have been raised about Arkham’s role as a centralized intelligence agency.
Additionally, allegations of leaking email addresses have added fuel to the controversy, with speculations that it may have been a deliberate move by the company.
