Sellers can also set up auctions for intelligence. If a seller has information they believe is valuable to the market, they can submit it for verification. Once verified, the intelligence is put up for auction. Sellers can set standard auction parameters including end-date and a buy-now price. Then interested parties bid for access to the intelligence. Bounty stakers and auction winners receive purchased intel exclusively for 90 days. Afterwards, it may be propagated to the broader Arkham platform for everyone to use. All ARKM staking and payout is controlled by audited smart contracts, without Arkham ever taking custody of the ARKM. To support the network, Arkham takes a 2.5% maker fee on submitted bounties and auction payouts and a 5% taker fee on bounty payouts and successful auction bids.

Intel submitted in bounties and auctions is reviewed by the Arkham Foundation, which either approves or rejects it. The Foundations response is validated on-chain using a Chainlink Decentralized Oracle Network (DON) , which serves as the oracle for the bounty and auction smart contracts. The use of a DON secures and decentralizes the intel verification process, mitigating the risk of false verification. It also lays the groundwork for complete decentralization of the intelligence review process, described below in section 3.5 on the intelligence oracle problem. These mechanisms produce an ecosystem of overlapping market roles: Bounty posters, who post bounties for particular sought-after intelligence Bounty hunters, who hunt for intelligence to claim posted bounties Intel merchants, who auction-off intelligence they gather themselves or receive from others Intel collectors, who collect intelligence from auctions rather than from targeted bounties

ARKM is the currency of the Arkham Intel Exchange. 5 Figure 2: Exchange Effect on Intel Market Dynamics 3.2 Bounties Buyers solicit intelligence by posting ARKM bounties on the exchange. To post the bounty, they must write the specifications of the information they seek, then lock in the bounty contract the amount of ARKM they wish to post as a reward. Anyone seeking the same intelligence can join the bounty by locking an equivalent amount of ARKM, which is the added to the total reward.

If the original poster of a bounty wants to remain the only intel recipient after others have joined, they can do so by buying out the joiner stake. For example, if the original poster placed a 1,000 ARKM bounty, and then two others join the bounty with 1,000 ARKM each, then the original poster can buy them out of the bounty by staking an additional 2,000 ARKM. The joiners receive their ARKM back, while the total value of the bounty remains at 3,000 ARKM, reflecting the increased demand for that intelligence. Joiners who have been bought out can buy back in by staking the new total bounty amount, in this case 3,000 ARKM.