Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | jk

Before 2024, most users' impression of Arkham was still that of a "crypto intelligence platform" — it was known for its precise wallet tagging and on-chain fund tracking capabilities, having repeatedly exposed core address information related to government coin sales, hacker attacks, and whale operations. However, when Arkham officially launched its centralized exchange functionality in 2024 and began promoting compliance and expansion globally, its identity began to undergo a fundamental transformation.

In this exclusive interview, Odaily deeply converses with Arkham's founder and CEO Miguel Morel, reflecting on the development trajectory of this emerging company since its inception. He discusses Arkham's transition from a simple on-chain analysis tool to a trading platform, how to build an AI-driven data tagging system, strategies for facing global regulatory challenges, and how to maintain a "small but efficient" team execution after surpassing 6.5 million users.

In this era of reshaping trust and efficiency in the crypto market, Arkham is attempting to become the entry point for intelligence and trading integration. Their ultimate goal is for people to think of Arkham first when they want to "view a transaction," rather than habitually opening Etherscan.

Odaily: Let's start with the basics; can you briefly talk about Arkham and your entrepreneurial history?

Miguel Morel: I founded Arkham in January 2020, with the initial vision of bringing more transparency to the cryptocurrency space. Before that, I was working on a stablecoin project. You know, when your product is an ERC20 token, you naturally want to understand who the users are and who is using your token.

If it's a functional token, you would also want to monitor the behavior of market makers, the inflow and outflow of the token on exchanges, and what those large holders are doing — are they holding? Selling? Or continuously buying for some reason? And who are these users?

On multiple chains, trying to identify who is behind certain wallets and who is driving the behavior of these addresses was a very common yet difficult task at that time. Because tools like Etherscan cannot really accomplish these tasks. Moreover, you have to switch back and forth between multiple blockchain explorers; for example, to check Tron information, you have to use TronScan, and for Ethereum, you need Etherscan.

So my idea was to integrate all of this into one product, which is Arkham — a multi-chain blockchain explorer. You can view real transaction activities across all mainstream chains, and we will analyze the actual owners behind these addresses and upload relevant tags. Users just need to log in to the platform to conduct this research for free.

This is the starting point of Arkham. After we officially launched the product in July 2023, we began sharing the product with friends, partners, and some market makers, trading firms, and token project teams we knew for them to try. We told them that if they wanted to track token holders or the on-chain dynamics of investment projects, this platform was a good choice.

Since then, our user base has started to grow rapidly. Between August and December 2023, we accumulated 10,000 users. By 2024, from January to July, we had already surpassed 1 million users. Now, our registered user count has exceeded 6.5 million.

In terms of usage and traffic, I can almost confirm that we are now one of the largest blockchain analysis service providers in the crypto space. This is the origin story of Arkham.

The protagonist of this interview, CEO Miguel Morel at the Token2049 conference in Dubai

Odaily: Let's talk a bit about the transformation; most of our audience is familiar with Arkham as it was in 2023. Because now most of the exposure, such as U.S. regulations related to Bitcoin, ETF-related content, and even major events like the German government selling off, are basically obtained through Arkham; but very few people understand the product line of Arkham in exchange services for 2025. Can you briefly discuss this transformation?

Miguel Morel: Of course. We initially started by analyzing user demographics and the overall market, and found that the vast majority of users on our platform are actually crypto traders. While many journalists use Arkham to research projects and understand industry dynamics, and we do have quite a few institutional users, if you look at the main demographic among our millions of registered users, the vast majority are retail or professional traders. They buy and sell crypto assets on different platforms based on the on-chain intelligence we provide.

So we thought, why not directly provide trading services for these people? Thus, we added a feature for directly trading cryptocurrencies on the Arkham platform, which is why we later decided to build a centralized exchange.

Now, on Arkham's analysis platform, if you are viewing a token's page or tracking the dynamics of a certain on-chain asset transfer, you can not only see detailed information but also directly click the "Trade" button. If you notice someone selling a certain token and you want to short it, just click the trade button on Arkham, complete the KYC verification, and you can directly engage in spot or contract trading in supported regions.

We found a very suitable product-market fit here: a large number of traders who were already using our on-chain intelligence have a demand for a secure, trustworthy, and transparent trading platform. So we are now aiming to meet the needs of these users by providing both intelligence and analysis, as well as complete trading services.

This is the entire transformation process of Arkham from focusing on on-chain intelligence and analysis in 2023 to becoming a one-stop platform with both intelligence and trading capabilities by 2025.

Odaily: What prompted you to enter the U.S. market? After all, this is essentially a direct challenge to Coinbase and Kraken, right?

Miguel Morel: You could say that. I am an American, and most members of the Arkham team are also Americans, and the company was founded in the U.S. I have always believed that there has been a demand for crypto assets in the U.S., but this demand was suppressed due to regulatory policies.

In recent years, the U.S. SEC and related regulatory agencies have taken a very tough stance on the crypto industry; we can casually cite some examples: whether it's Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, or token projects like Ripple, the U.S. government has almost always intervened and prosecuted them.

This has led to a situation where there is a significant gap between crypto products and services available globally and those that U.S. users can actually access. So we decided to seize this opportunity: before the new government took office, we had already spent a whole year building the infrastructure. And now, this new government is clearly more friendly towards the crypto industry and is even promoting some crypto-related projects, giving us the opportunity to serve users in our ideal way.

Of course, retail users still cannot access contract (perpetual) trading in the U.S., but I believe this is the direction for the future. You have to know that in the U.S., the stock market already has various mature investment tools like futures, options, and derivatives. And in terms of information transparency, the crypto market is actually clearer than the stock market.

So as the U.S. market gradually opens up and regulations become clearer and allow projects to operate compliantly, we hope to be at the forefront of this wave, providing complete products and services for U.S. users.

Odaily: Can I understand that you will continue to expand from the 17 states that Arkham currently covers to all 50 states in the future?

Miguel Morel: That's right; that is our goal.

Odaily: You mentioned earlier that many traders naturally transition from intelligence acquisition to centralized trading, which is a very natural process.

Now there are many trading readers complaining that since the collapse of FTX, many trader-friendly tech products have also disappeared. For example, tokenized stocks that were once supported on FTX, as well as interface settings and features very suitable for high-frequency trading, are no longer available.

Do you have plans to meet this demand? Are there currently specific technical features being developed for this? Are there future plans in this regard?

Miguel Morel: Absolutely, this is a very core area of advantage for Arkham. We have over 1,000 institutions using our intelligence and analysis tools to guide their trading behavior.

Long before we launched the exchange functionality, thousands of top trading institutions, hedge funds, and market makers (including traditional financial institutions and native crypto institutions) were already using Arkham's data. These users can be considered our "base."

We collaborate with them mainly through APIs to deeply understand the features and experiences they truly want in these products. Our goal is to serve two directions simultaneously:

• On one hand, retail users. We are currently developing a mobile app that allows users to trade directly on Arkham on iOS or Android; currently, the platform only supports the web version. This is our product direction for ordinary users.

• On the other hand, we are also actively improving the trading capabilities and liquidity configurations required by institutions, providing services for those with large capital volumes and complex trading needs.

We are indeed drawing inspiration from past products that users praised but disappeared after the collapse of FTX, and we see that many existing platforms are not investing enough in these areas. So we place great importance on user feedback, and it is this feedback that drives our product decision-making direction.

**Odaily: Can I understand the future user scenarios like this? For example, *they are monitoring an asset in the crypto market, and suddenly their phone pops up a notification, and they can directly trade by clicking in* — can we envision it this way?**

Miguel Morel: That is exactly our vision. While it may not be fully realized in the first version, the ultimate vision for the final version is to deeply integrate our existing intelligence analysis system with the exchange functionality.

In an ideal scenario, users can set up dashboards, establish on-chain tracking targets, create alerts, and once triggered, immediately initiate trades based on this real-time on-chain intelligence. This is our vision for the final product form of Arkham — a complete closed loop where intelligence and trading are seamlessly linked.

Arkham's tracking of MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings addresses. Source: Arkham

Odaily: Will AI features be incorporated into this process?

Miguel Morel: Absolutely. In fact, the vast majority of wallet tags on Arkham are automatically generated by AI.

Even before the AI wave hit the industry, we were already hiring data scientists to build our own machine learning models and heuristic algorithms to achieve scalable wallet ownership identification. For example, we have now tagged about 2.5 billion wallet addresses on the Arkham Intelligence platform — a task that would be impossible to complete manually.

So, 99% of the intelligence information you see on Arkham, or even the data pushes from Arkham you see on social platforms like Twitter, are generated by AI.

This AI capability is deeply embedded in our products and is used to enhance user experience. The mobile app we are developing will certainly continue to follow this technological path.

Odaily: Do you think there have been any fun or interesting moments during the product development process?

Miguel Morel: I think many of the interesting stories about Arkham are related to the positioning of our product itself. Some people find it quite interesting, while others think what we are doing is a bit sensitive or even controversial.

For instance, there have been voices saying Arkham is a "chain-eye" or "spy tool," "exposure tool," etc. I believe these statements intentionally portray Arkham as a more controversial project than it actually is.

From our perspective, what we are doing is making the publicly available, transparent, and auditable information on-chain truly "usable." The crypto industry has long claimed to be more transparent than fiat systems and traditional banking systems, but in reality, no platform has truly converted this transparency into usable features for users.

This is an underlying characteristic of blockchain, but no one has ever "put it to use." We may be the first to turn this public data into a product that is genuinely helpful for traders and ordinary users, which is why we have gained so much user support and formed the Arkham community.

Of course, there are still some people who oppose us, especially those focused on privacy. They may emphasize the "privacy" aspect but often overlook the other side of cryptography — which is openness, transparency, and auditability.

We believe these two aspects are two sides of the same coin. While they are working on the "privacy" side, we are working on the "transparency" side. But that doesn't mean we are oppositional. Although we sometimes encounter some "hostility" because of this, we firmly believe that what we are doing is beneficial for the entire industry, and we continue to prove our value to the outside world.

Odaily: What you just mentioned is actually another key question I was prepared to ask — "How do you do it?" For example, you sometimes manage to summarize all the addresses involved in a hacking incident and relate them to other events; or you can track wallet addresses related to institutions like the U.S. and German governments, or even wallets associated with celebrities like Trump — these are very complex chains, and as you said, it is completely impossible to accomplish manually.

This is also one of the most common questions from our users: How do you obtain this information? How do you ensure its accuracy? Why should we trust the data provided by Arkham?

Miguel Morel: We have many sources of information. But the core data source for Arkham is actually the blockchain itself.

The data on the blockchain is completely public, transparent, and verifiable. Addresses are never isolated; they are always connected to other addresses. A new address is meaningless if it has not received any assets. Once it receives funds, those funds must come from other addresses, and this "flow of funds" forms the foundational logic for us to identify and associate addresses.

So what we are doing is systematically tracking the inflow and outflow of crypto assets, studying where they come from and where they go. Behind these flow relationships lies a wealth of inferable information, such as who the insiders of a project are and which are the hot or cold wallets of exchanges.

In addition to on-chain flow data, we also combine off-chain information sources, such as court documents, government reports, regulatory filings, etc. For example, if MicroStrategy announces that they bought $100 million worth of Bitcoin in January, another $100 million in March, and $500 million in December, we can look on-chain for wallet groups that match this timing and amount pattern. By combining on-chain and off-chain data, and using machine learning and heuristic algorithms, we can infer the ownership of these addresses and label them.

Besides on-chain data, we also incorporate public information, such as court documents, government reports, SEC disclosures, etc. For example: If MicroStrategy publicly states that they bought $100 million worth of Bitcoin in January, another $100 million in March, and $500 million in December, we can go back on-chain to find groups of addresses that had corresponding scale transfers at those times for pattern matching. What Arkham does is combine this on-chain data with off-chain information, using our constructed machine learning models and heuristic rules to connect them, ultimately generating address labels.

The key point is: This information is all public.

Anyone can see this label data on the Arkham platform, and the information I see is exactly the same as what anyone else sees. If someone finds an error, they can submit feedback. Moreover, most of the wallets we track belong to well-known exchanges, funds, and wealthy individuals, and sometimes after we generate labels, journalists report on these wallets. Very few of the marked entities have raised objections to us.

I have been working on Arkham for five years now, and I can count on one hand the number of times someone has come to us and said, "This label is wrong; it's not me."

This also indirectly proves the accuracy and influence of the labels on the Arkham platform. Sometimes we even label a certain address on-chain, and it takes a long time for third-party information to corroborate the true ownership of that address. So this process is not only accurate but often ahead of the curve.

Odaily: At Odaily, we have observed a clear trend: before 2023, the regulatory environment in the U.S. was very strict, with the SEC suing everywhere, especially against crypto companies providing services in the U.S. However, since Trump returned to the political core, regulation has noticeably relaxed. The SEC is now starting to listen to the voices of the industry and is much more open in its attitude.

What do you think of the current regulatory landscape? Where might it head in the future? How will Arkham respond?

Miguel Morel: Overall, I believe the regulatory environment remains cautious and even skeptical towards the crypto industry.

Take us as an example; we currently operate in only 17 states in the U.S., and to operate fully, we need to apply to other states for various licenses, such as money transmission licenses (MTLs), to ensure compliance within the legal framework.

Looking globally, the regulatory rules for cryptocurrencies vary greatly from country to country. Some jurisdictions completely prohibit the provision of contract products; others only allow user access through "reverse solicitation" but do not permit direct marketing. This leads to a very fragmented and complex compliance challenge for the entire industry.

Despite this, I believe the overall trend is positive, especially as the U.S. is gradually advancing towards a more constructive regulatory framework for crypto, which will have a demonstration effect globally. Many countries have strict regulations because they are highly dependent on international institutions like the U.S., the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which to some extent determine what is "compliant" and what is "unacceptable" globally.

Therefore, if the U.S. begins to show goodwill towards crypto assets, other countries will gradually follow suit, relaxing policies and increasing inclusivity, allowing the crypto ecosystem and entrepreneurs to truly thrive.

As for Arkham, if I had to do it all over again, I would still choose the same path and repeat the same strategy, continuing to focus on what we are doing.

Odaily: What do you think is the biggest challenge in the entrepreneurial process? Besides the compliance issues we just discussed, what other challenges are there?**

Miguel Morel: Recruitment. Recruitment is indeed a very significant challenge. Finding smart, ambitious, and willing to work to our standards for Arkham is not easy.

We are a lean and efficient startup team, and we do not want to fall into bureaucracy or become a large, bloated, and lifeless corporation. We want to maintain a small but elite status, keep our vitality, and continue to create excellent products. The only way to achieve this is to hire only top talent, true A+ level members.

However, once you set the recruitment standards at this level, you quickly realize that there are very few people who truly meet this standard. You will soon exhaust your network resources. You will also realize that it is impossible to recruit such people through LinkedIn or cold outreach emails. Even most of the people who apply through our official website do not meet this standard. They are just ordinary people looking for a job, not seeking a career that can become a life mission.

The people we are looking for must be those who are willing to treat this job as a lifelong career and pursuit. Our team currently has about 50 members, and from the volume of applications, we receive many resumes, but very few can be hired. This is also one of the most difficult things we have encountered in our entrepreneurial journey.

Odaily: When it comes to competition, how do you view the current competitive environment? After all, there are thousands of centralized exchanges in the market, some with broad positioning and others aimed at professional traders. How do you view your competitors?**

Miguel Morel: I think our biggest competitor right now is actually ourselves.

We need to continuously refine our products to make them better and better; we need to keep finding the right talent; and we also need to maintain the team's efficiency and restraint. This is what I often tell the team — our biggest battle is with ourselves, it is a battle against inertia.

Many times, when a project initially achieves some success, such as having over a million followers on Twitter and millions of registered users on the platform, it can lead to a mindset of "taking a breather." However, to truly grow the business, one cannot stop. Therefore, the key is to constantly remind oneself and the team not to be satisfied with current achievements but to continuously push the business forward.

As for external competitors, our biggest opponent remains traditional centralized exchanges. Although these exchanges have a large user base, they generally face significant regulatory burdens and often perform poorly in terms of user experience, especially for token projects, market makers, and large traders.

So our goal is to provide these user groups with a fundamentally better alternative — whether in product experience, service level, or trading transparency.

Odaily: Let's talk about the competition in on-chain intelligence: there are clearly more and more on-chain data analysis tools in the market now. How do you view the competition in intelligence analysis?

Miguel Morel: To be honest, while there are quite a few names in the market now, the actual traffic of these platforms is very low, especially compared to the level of user interaction we have on social media, our official website, and the platform, which is significantly greater.

In my view, our real competitors are not these "intelligence" platforms, but traditional blockchain explorers like Etherscan, TronScan, and SolScan. Their user numbers and traffic far exceed most on-chain analysis tools.

So for us, what we really want to surpass are these browser-level products. Take Ethereum as an example: if you transfer some ETH now and someone asks you for "proof," you will most likely send them an Etherscan link. Our goal is to make people send an Arkham link in the future instead of an Etherscan link. This level of influence in "default cognition" is what we truly aim to benchmark and pursue.

Odaily: One last question — what are your plans for the next 12 months? Are there any key milestones to look forward to?

Miguel Morel: Of course. Our next goal is to enter more countries and regions, expanding the scope of our service jurisdictions as much as possible.

We are currently prioritizing markets that are more friendly to the crypto industry, but we also hope to challenge regions with stricter regulations but large market sizes, and formally provide services under compliance. For example, obtaining the VARA license in the UAE is a key focus on our roadmap, and we are planning to advance in this direction to further enter the Middle Eastern market.

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