Blockchain sleuths win Arkham’s US$5,000 bounty for Terra, Do Kwon’s wallet info

Arkham Intel Exchange, the blockchain platform that says it aims to provide information on the real-world entities and individuals behind crypto market activity, on Monday said two blockchain sleuths had won the US$5,000 bounty for new evidence of wallets owned by Terraform Labs and its imprisoned co-founder Kwon Do-hyeong. This comes amid claims of crypto linked to Kwon being moved and converted.

See related article: How did Do Kwon move US$18 mln in stablecoins to ‘unfreezable’ tokens while in Montenegro jail?

One anonymous blockchain sleuth and another that goes by the Twitter pseudonym ErgoBTC will receive a payout of 9,519.26 ARKM, the native token of the Arkham platform that is worth approximately US$5,019 at the time of publication.

ErgoBTC alleged last October that the Luna Foundation Guard, the non-profit unit of Terraform, maintained another digital wallet aside from one that it publicly declared as its only one.

New York-based Arkham’s website says the individuals or organizations that put up such bounties on its site have exclusive access to discovered information for 90 days, after which it becomes public, indicating the alleged wallet data on Terraform and Kwon will be available in late October.

Arkham’s tweet announcing the bounty winners came with an image that says the bounty was posted by “Arkham Admin,” while it notes on its website that anyone can post a bounty seeking on-chain information.

Kwon, 31, is wanted in the U.S. and South Korea where prosecutors accuse him of fraud, securities law violations and several other charges related to the collapse of the US$40 billion Terra-Luna crypto project in May 2022. He has denied all the allegations.

On July 3, US$18 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) stablecoins were transferred from a crypto wallet linked to Kwon to an unidentified wallet, according to Cho Jae-woo, blockchain data lab head at Seoul’s Hansung University. The tokens were then converted into Ether, wrapped Bitcoin and other tokens that would make it difficult for authorities to freeze them, Cho told Forkast.

As Kwon is in jail in Montenegro after being convicted of attempting to travel on a forged passport, Cho said Kwon may have revealed his private keys to someone he trusts before he was imprisoned, which would account for the crypto transfers.

When asked about his assets in Montenegrin court, Kwon said he and his wife co-own an apartment in Seoul worth around 3 million euros (US$3.2 million), while refusing to disclose the total value of his assets, the local JoongAng Daily news site reported on May 12.

Earlier this year, a Korean court froze 233.3 billion won (US$176 million) worth of Kwon’s assets, including property and securities, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office told Forkast on May 10.

Arkham on July 10 launched its site that allows the offering of bounties to blockchain specialists that help “deanonymize” on-chain data, citing such benefits as tracking scammers as well as the Terra-Luna case that saw billions of dollars evaporate and burned hundreds of thousands of investors.

The platform has sparked controversy in the crypto industry, with some saying it could be misused to reveal the identities of innocent people, according to The Block.

See related article: SEC hints at appeal of Ripple decision in court filing against Terraform Labs