Crypto Startup Arkham Has Reportedly Had Users Doxxed for Months
Arkham Intelligence, a crypto data company, sparked controversy on Monday when it announced a new service that would reveal the identities of digital wallet owners. This angered privacy-focused crypto enthusiasts.
Arkham has disclosed its customers’ personal information. This revelation also appeared on Monday. It threw the spotlight on Arkham’s approach to privacy, just as they launched a service to expose crypto wallet owners on a large scale.
Arkham’s Web Link Referral Program is the cause of this issue. Arkham users can invite others to the wallet tracking dashboard by sharing their unique URL. These URLs end in a random jumble of letters. They are actually a simple version of an email address written in Base64.
Arkham did not respond to a comment request.
Arkham Intelligence has developed a service popular for tracking crypto transactions and identifying crypto wallet owners. Arkham Intelligence isn’t the only service tagging wallets, but it launched the “Intel Exchange” on Monday. This marketplace allows users to post bounties for identifying anonymous crypto wallets.
Arkham’s plans to create a marketplace focused on bounties have garnered widespread support from privacy-focused crypto enthusiasts. While wallet labeling services like Nansen or Chainalysis have long caused trouble for privacy-focused crypto enthusiasts, Arkham’s plans have a particular appeal.
Regarding the separate issue, those who shared their Arkham links may have inadvertently compromised their anonymity (or at least revealed their email address). On Monday, m4gicpotato — a pseudonymous contributor to privacy blockchain Beam — posted the issue on Twitter, where it went viral. M4gicpotato describes himself as a privacy activist who has been working in the crypto space under various names since 2017.
In a Telegram conversation with AskFX, m4gicpotato stated, “As a privacy activist, I’m concerned about the impact of these tools on user privacy.” They started looking at Arkham , when Binance announced that it would host the public sale of ARKM. Arkham referred to ARKM as an intelligence-earning token.
“I was amazed when Binance and [CEO Changpeng Zhao] M4gicpotato declared that they chose to support Arkham. This happened especially after Beam and other privacy coins were delisted in the EU.
M4gicpotato said that the decision to encrypt user emails in Base64 had “just added an extra layer of disbelief to the situation.”
It’s unclear how many users this setup could affect. In theory, anyone who shared a referral link would have sent their email into the airwaves. Twitter has been used by some users prompting them to share their links.
The setup is the same as since December. Arkham shared code for the beta on Twitter at the time. The URL of the code contains the base64 version of the CEO’s email. E-mail address.
