Arkham airdrop analysis – The Cryptonomist

Let’s look at some statistics on the distribution of these tokens

In this article we go over the Arkham Intelligence project and the ARKM token airdrop that took place on 18 July, benefiting all early adopters of the project.

We look at some statistics on the distribution of these tokens, analyze what the main eligibility criteria were, and find out which addresses received the most money from this event.

All the details below.

What is Arkham Intelligence?

Arkham Intelligence is a blockchain analytics platform that allows users to track transactions taking place in the crypto world by inspecting addresses and investigating remote connections.

On the interface side, Arkham works similarly to other blockchain tracking platforms such as Debank: just paste an address, token, or hash of a transaction you want to analyze into the search bar to get additional information.

In detail, the platform allows users to perform numerous searches, such as analyzing the balance and history of a wallet, tracking specific entities, studying the flow of certain tokens and their respective top holders, and other custom queries.

Recently, thanks to Arkham, it was possible to quickly identify moves made by Celsius liquidators to the FalconX exchange to sell LINK, MATIC, AAVE, and SNX crypto assets.

Arkham distinguishes itself from competitors by using an artificial intelligence system that combines on-chain and off-chain data, going to synthesize it all through a single source of truth. 

Within the platform there is data for 350 million addresses and 200 thousand entities, all of which can be accessed completely free of charge.

Another very interesting new feature is the “Intel Exchange” function, which serves as a marketplace where blockchain data can be bought and sold independently via smart contracts: anyone can create a bounty for a particular search to be performed, and users can apply to get the job done.

For example, 100k ARKM tokens, equivalent to about $60,000, have been offered to anyone who can discover the identity of the hacker implicated in the $415 million exploit on the FTX exchange a few days after it declared bankruptcy.

In recent months, the company secured a $12 million funding round led by private investors such as Sam Altman, Tim Draper, Geoff Lewis, and Peter Thiel, as well as companies Coinbase and Digital Currency group.

18 July saw the live airdrop of the ARKM token, distributed among early adopters of the platform as a reward for support in the early phase of the project.

In the next paragraphs we go over all the details about this airdrop

All the data on Arkham’s airdrop

The Arkham airdrop took place on Tuesday 18 July and allowed more than 60 thousand individuals to make the claim of the long-awaited ARKM token.

The snapshot was taken on 8 July by the project team, complete with anti-sybil mechanisms to prevent malicious users from receiving multiple airdrops.

All active users who performed various actions within the platform such as exploring the features present, tracking on-chain movements of tokens, and inviting new users via invitation were rewarded.

The latter factor was probably the most crucial, hence generally those who shilled Arkham the most within their network got a good allocation of tokens.

All actions taken over the previous months were quantified through a score, which at the time of the airdrop announcement was turned into tokens that could be withdrawn.

In total, 7% of the crypto supply, the total of which amounts to 100 million units, has been allocated to community incentives: currently 30 million ARKM have been allocated in the first phase of the airdrop, of which 28 million have already been withdrawn by users.

A total of $18.4 million has been given away (according to prices at the time of writing), for an average of $285 per user.

According to data from Dune Analytics, most of the community received a prize of less than 200 ARKM, while only 154 addresses got more than 10K ARKM: of these only 5 lucky individuals took home more than 100K ARKM.

The most interesting thing about this is that participating in this airdrop was totally free! There was no need to conduct transactions, pay fees, deposit cash, etc.

It is possible that new rewards will be unlocked in the future for major contributors to the project, but the Arkham team’s plans are currently unknown.

The airdrop was accompanied by a launchpad on Binance and listing on the same exchange and other crypto trading platforms.

Given the hype and attention in the market, the cryptocurrency exploded on the first day of trading reaching a price of $0.89, only to begin a slight retracement in the following days.

Airdrop Arkham: the addresses that received the most tokens

In this section, we analyze the 3 addresses that received the most ARKM tokens in the Arkham airdrop. 

Since the blockchain is a public tool, we can sift through the various on-chain transactions performed to determine with absolute certainty which claimers obtained the most cryptocurrencies.

The first address obtained a whopping 249,353 ARKM, equivalent to over $180,000 at the time of the first hour of trading on Binance.

On the exchange, the first candle of trading closed at 3 PM (CET) time with a price of $0.75.

The user who received the huge amount of tokens chose to sell most of the proceeds on decentralized platforms before they were listed by Binance.

In doing so, he sold 200k ARKM at a price of about $0.65 for a total of 69 ETH, in addition to having made 3 other small sales for an additional 14 ETH.

At this time he still holds 9,353 ARKM with a counter value of $5,500.

The second address with the largest allocation in the Arkham airdrop was awarded 246,391 ARKM.

In this case the individual chose wisely to transfer the entire supply to Binance, being able to take advantage of a higher exchange price.

We cannot know whether all the tokens were sold in the market but presumably that is what happened. 

In fact, those who transfer assets to CEX usually do so in order to sell, otherwise they would have left their assets held in a proprietary non-custodial wallet.

As is advisable to do whenever sending a large sum of money in crypto, the individual made a test deposit to avoid making mistakes. 

The third address with the highest number of tokens in rewards got 189,828 ARKM.

As in the previous case, the user decided to send the full amount at the Binance exchange, yet arriving slightly late since the deposit was made at the time the doors to crypto trading opened.

Hence, it is likely that given the waiting time on the Ethereum network for sending ERC-20 tokens, he was unable to sell the loot at the most advantageous price recorded at that time.

Regardless, the individual still managed to earn an indicative sum in excess of $140,000.