With someone already tracking Elon Musk’s private jet, why not his personal crypto wallet?
One person has offered to pay about $670 in crypto to get that information, crypto journalist Molly White reported on Tuesday, via a blockchain application that's raised a multitude of privacy and safety concerns following the launch of its “intel exchange."
Arkham Intelligence's "Intel Exchange" is live, and someone's already put up a bounty for Elon Musk's crypto wallet information lol
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) July 18, 2023
1000 ARKM ≈ $660 pic.twitter.com/F4mBRvgZj6
The so-called “intel-to-earn” application Arkham allows users to submit a bounty for information about an individual’s blockchain transactions “in the public interest.”
“The goal is to usher in a new era of greater transparency in crypto, where scammers, hackers, dumpers, and other harmful actors can be identified much more easily and quickly—and valuable pieces of market analysis, dashboards and research can be monetized by their discoverers,” the project’s website reads.
Announcing The World’s First On-Chain Intelligence Exchange
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) July 10, 2023
Buy and sell information on the owner of any blockchain wallet address—anonymously, via smart contract. pic.twitter.com/4xr7dLvOjp
Other bounties on the exchange include nearly $7,000 for information on undiscovered crypto wallets owned by fugitive Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, and $67,000 to uncover the hacker who reportedly stole $415 million from FTX in the wake of its collapse last year.
Despite the site's purportedly noble intentions, some are cautioning that paying to dox crypto users is antithetical to the space’s culture, which prides itself on anonymity. Others on Crypto Twitter pointed out that the application could incentivize violence and corruption.
We are now one step closer to onchain assassination markets https://t.co/nZIUr5Ro1J pic.twitter.com/B19hoVGMwi
— fart conneisseur the third (@fartconthird) July 10, 2023
I'm not a fan of the Arkham update.
— WickdNFT (@WickdNFT) July 10, 2023
What's to stop bad actors from launching projects only to collect alt wallets and sell that information
What's to stop random employees from x exchange to do the same if bounty is high enough?
I wonder if this is even legal in most places https://t.co/YKd8bADqr4
In a Twitter Spaces this week, Arkham CEO Miguel Morel pushed back on people’s criticisms of the project, saying the bar for verifying information will be high.
All information submitted in response to bounties must be publicly available and should not include physical addresses, phone numbers, financial information, or other information tied to personal IDs, according to the company’s website.
Arkham has raised over $10 million in two funding rounds that value the company at $150 million, and some investors include venture capital investor Tim Draper, Bedrock Capital, Wintermute Trading, GSR Markets, and the cofounders of Palantir and OpenAI, according to the crypto exchange Binance.
The project’s native cryptocurrency is down 10% at around 67 cents as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Binance.
