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The highly controversial Arkham Intel Exchange has approved its first-ever bounty hunt, with crypto sleuths set to go after crypto wallets belonging to Terra co-founder Do Kwon.
With Do Kwon currently languishing in a Montenegrin jail, crypto users have long been trying to seek out any information regarding his crypto wallets.
“Deanonymizing The Blockchain”
The Arkham Intel Exchange is a highly controversial platform, acting as a marketplace that facilitates the trading of on-chain data. The platform recently approved its first-ever bounty submission after two crypto sleuths found evidence of crypto wallets belonging to Do Kwon. An anonymous user, along with a pseudo-anonymous Twitter user going by the name of @ErgoBTC, were paid around 9500 ARKM tokens, worth around $5000 for their submission.
“The Arkham Intel Exchange now has its first approved submission: new evidence of wallets owned by Do Kwon / Terraform Labs. An anonymous on-chain sleuth and @ErgoBTC were the successful bounty hunters.”
It further added,
“Expanded labels for the LFG BTC address activity after running off with funds intended for the defense of the UST depeg have been added to Arkham as a part of their bounty program.”
According to Arkham Intel, the anonymous user and Ergo sent the platform considerable evidence they had found wallets owned by Do Kwon and Terra. Ergo stated this evidence contradicts public statements made by Terra that it holds only one Luna Foundation Guard wallet. Luna Foundation Guard stated that 80,081 BTC, which comprised over 99% of its reserves, had exited the fund. LFG had claimed that the reason behind the sale of the crypto asset was to shore up and support the overall health of the Terra ecosystem.
ErgoBTC’s Findings
Ergo shared further details about his research, which was first made public in October when the Luna Foundation Guard claimed it had only one Bitcoin wallet containing 313 BTC. Ergo had written at the time,
“While it may be true that this is the only formally ‘declared’ wallet controlled by the LFG, they seem to have failed to account for the trail of bread crumbs left by the change outputs used to fund their new declared wallet.”
The crypto sleuth continued to track the funds over the next few months and noted that they were moving even after Do Kwon’s arrest in March.
“Kwon may have been rolled up for faking a passport. But LFG and the BTC are still moving.”
The wallet being tracked has been officially christened “Terraform Labs” on the Arkham Intel Exchange and currently holds around $160 million worth of crypto, out of which around $153 million is in Bitcoin.
The Arkham Intel Exchange
The Arkham Intel Exchange was launched on the 10th of July to generally negative reactions by members of the crypto space, with most describing it as a glorified snitching service. Many in the crypto space have also stated that the platform could be used to dox innocent individuals. Users on the platform can place bounties for information related to blockchain transactions, which would then be released to the public within 90 days following approval from the platform. Going by this timeline, information about the Do Kwon and Terra wallets could be available in the public domain sometime in October.
The Terra Collapse
The Terra collapse was one of the most crippling events in the history of crypto when the collapse of its algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD and its cryptocurrency LUNA triggered chaos in the market. Following TerraUSD’s de-pegging and the ecosystem’s collapse, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Do Kwon with securities violations for selling unregistered transactions of crypto asset securities. He was also charged for failing to provide truthful disclosures and providing investors with misleading information.
Kwon’s whereabouts were unknown until March 2023, when he was apprehended by authorities in Montenegro and was sentenced to four months in prison for traveling using forged travel papers. Several other individuals connected to Terra are also under investigation by authorities in South Korea. Recently, co-founder Hin Hyun-seong had his first hearing for charges related to illegal profits from the sale of LUNA tokens.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.