Arkham is a blockchain intelligence company that has built a platform that provides information on the real-world entities and individuals behind crypto market activity. The company is a Series A startup with over $12 million raised from investors including the founders of Palantir and OpenAI, and VCs including Geoff Lewis at Bedrock and Tim Draper.
There is a growing need for information on cryptocurrency networks, from traders seeking to predict market movements, to journalists seeking to inform reporting, to government agencies seeking to uncover criminal activity. Arkham meets this need by delivering unique intelligence on cryptocurrency markets using proprietary software and analysis.
The crypto intelligence industry promises to boom over the next decade as the crypto ecosystem matures and more players enter the market seeking sophisticated data and analysis. Arkham is poised to play a major role in this new frontier.
The platform's two main components are the Analytics Platform and Intel Exchange. The Analytics Platform covers analytics on various entities, exchanges, funds, whales and tokens. For instance, you can check the portfolio holdings, transaction history, exchange flows, network relationships and other on-chain analytics. The Intel Exchange allows anyone to buy and sell address labels and other intelligence, either through bounties, auctions or the DATA Program.
Arkham uses an in-house AI engine with various sources of data, such as public records, social media, web scraping and user submissions. The data is used to label addresses and provide entity analytics for ULTRA, the company's AI algorithm.
Arkham's platform can be used for various purposes, such as tracking stolen funds, identifying fraudsters, verifying counterparties, auditing transactions, investigating hacks, and more. Arkham claims that its platform can help combat the proliferation of crypto crimes and scams by incentivizing on-chain research.
However, Arkham’s platform has also raised privacy concerns among some crypto users and advocates, who argue that deanonymizing the blockchain violates the principles of anonymity and censorship-resistance that underpin the crypto movement. Arkham has defended its platform by saying that it does not collect or store any personal data from users, and that it only provides publicly available information that can be verified on the blockchain.
