Crypto Leaks
The $275,000 Question: did Sam Bankman-Fried or Arkham use M Group to shop disinformation to The New York Times?
New video evidence exposes extraordinary links between convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and Arkham Intelligence, and the publication of a defamatory report by Andrew Ross Sorkin — including a mysterious payment.
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Key background

  • When the much-anticipated Internet Computer network (a public cloud platform) launched May 2021, after years of R&D, it was widely seen as potential competitive threat to certain leading blockchain projects.
  • At launch, the price of its native ICP token was manipulated on FTX, driving its price to $500, giving the network an unsustainable fully-diluted market capitalization of $230 billion, with the result that it immediately began to crash.
  • Six weeks later, the damage to the reputation of the project was greatly amplified by the publication of disinformation by a previously unknown party called Arkham Intelligence, which was co-published by The New York Times.
  • We expose extraordinary links between Sam Bankman-Fried, owner of the FTX exchange, and Arkham, noting that Bankman-Fried was the largest investor behind a major blockchain project threatened by the Internet Computer.
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin, The Times journalist who published the disinformation, wrote puff pieces for Bankman-Fried and his FTX crypto exchange, which donated hundreds of millions of dollars to aligned political causes.
  • We also reveal how Arkham used a PR firm they referred to as "FTX's PR people," and how they inexplicably made a $275,000 payment to them, around the time the disinformation was published, even though they had no product in the market to promote to the press.
  • This case reworks the earlier Case #10 from November 9, 2023, with new analysis and evidence, including covert video footage revealing a $275,000 payment.

Disclaimers
  • We have not contacted the subjects of this article for comment.
  • Readers should evaluate the evidence presented and draw their own conclusions.
  • Sam Bankman-Fried has been convicted of financial crimes, but not charged regarding the specific matters in this case.
  • The connections we document do not constitute proof of criminal conspiracy.
  • When we characterize events as suspicious, or raising questions, we are expressing our opinion that the conduct warrants explanation, rather than stating that wrongdoing definitively occurred.

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CASE #12  November 5, 2025

The key players

This case focuses on three key players. These are their backgrounds.

Picture of Sam Bankman-Fried, Miguel Morel, and Andrew Ross Sorkin

The key cast of characters we investigate includes:

  • Sam Bankman-Fried
    The once owner of FTX, a large digital assets ("cryptocurrency") exchange, and Alameda Research, the world's largest digital assets hedge fund and market maker, who is now serving 25 years in prison for financial crimes. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams described Bankman-Fried as committing "one of the biggest financial frauds in American history."
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin
    The star reporter and media pundit of The Times, who chose to laud Bankman-Fried as the "J.P. Morgan of Crypto," was rumored to have attended his dinners at the SALT conference, and invited the criminal to his DealRoom conference to speak alongside world leaders and luminaries such as Janet Yellen, U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine.
  • Miguel Morel
    The founder and CEO of Arkham Intelligence, an American crypto startup, and business protégé of a Californian cult linked to effective altruism, where he helped create a small cap cryptocurrency. Morel emerged from obscurity in 2021 to publish the "Arkham ICP Report," which was later exposed as made-to-order disinformation attacking the Internet Computer ecosystem. Despite lacking credentials and neutrality, his report was mysteriously published by Sorkin at The Times, whose reputation helped cause billions in market harm. He has faced numerous accusations of corrupt activities.

What this is about

The Internet Computer was one of the most anticipated blockchain projects in history — its advanced technology enables it to play the role of a new kind of cloud platform that's secure and decentralized, as well as powering tokenization. But when the network originally launched, May 2021, and in the months afterwards, it came under attack from vested interests in the Web3 (or "Crypto") industry that feared it would compete with their investments.

Previously, we have presented evidence this began with the manipulation of the price of its ICP token, which primarily occurred on the FTX financial exchange for digital assets. FTX was owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now serving 25 years in prison for financial crimes. Bankman-Fried had stolen billions in funds from his customers, and invested them into the Solana blockchain, which some expected would be disrupted by the Internet Computer.

After the ICP token price opened at around $500 on spot markets around the world, a few hours later it began to crash. Accusations then began to fly that the DFINITY Foundation, which had used a large technical team to develop the network's technology over several preceding years, was causing the crash by insider selling.

These claims were greatly amplified by the appearance of a previously unknown startup called Arkham Intelligence, and their 21-year old CEO, Miguel Morel, which produced a hit piece report online that was sensationalized in the style of a crime documentary with an accompanying video. Despite its dubious origins, the report was mysteriously published by Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times, their star journalist and media pundit, which lent its credibility, reputation and distribution, causing great harm to the reputation of the Internet Computer project, and making the market situation much worse.

The report made claims that defied common sense with respect to how financial markets work — which it seems likely those with financial expertise would be aware of.

At the manipulated opening price of $500, the network had a fully-diluted market capitalization of $230 billion, as calculated by multiplying the number of tokens by their price (Arkham's report claimed an incorrect initial price of $700 and lampooned an even higher "$300 billion" valuation).

Meanwhile, there had long been information in the public domain, which DFINITY reinforced in its network launch media, that it had sold 25% of the entire supply of ICP tokens directly to the public at $0.03 in its February 2017 crowdsale (or "ICO"), and distributed more to those contributing to the project before 2017.

Moreover, two subsequent private fundraising rounds in 2018 sold tokens to hedge funds, venture capital firms and high net worth individuals, with the last round widely reported to have sold at only $5 per ICP token, and moreover, over the years, DFINITY had distributed tokens as employment incentives to its large team when they were worth much less.

At the $500 price, there would be plenty of sellers. For example, at that price, members of the public who participated in the crowdsale could sell vesting tokens to realize gains of 16,667X — which unsurprisingly many would do. This means that to sustain the price at $500, cash inflows of tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars into ICP spot markets would have been required.

The cause of the crash — unsurprisingly — was therefore the unsustainably high price the price manipulators had set.

Cash inflows of the scale required could not be sustained, and therefore the price began to rapidly fall as the markets balanced supply and demand by doing "price discovery." There was no reason to expect anything else should have occurred, but Arkham and The New York Times chose to promote disinformation about the cause.

We believe that both the price manipulation that set up the price crash on financial markets, and subsequent events in which false narratives about the cause of the crash were promoted, are linked to vested interests in the Web3 industry that wished to protect blockchain ecosystems they were invested in from competition.

Soon after the publication of the Arkham report by The New York Times, a securities class action was created against DFINITY Foundation by a law firm called Roche Freedman, which directly referenced their claims, and further amplified them worldwide using underhand tactics and loopholes in defamation law, causing more harm.

Some time after, we began investigating what was going on.

In June 2022, we published our first two cases. Case #1 covered the price manipulation of ICP, which we traced to a new futures instrument called ICP-PERP that had been created on FTX just before the Internet Computer launched. We also bravely revealed troubling integration between Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange, Alameda Research, his market maker and hedge fund, and his investments into the Solana blockchain, while he was still a hero of Silicon Valley, and a major donor to, and hero of, an American political cause and its supporters.

In Case #2, we exposed that the Arkham report was apparently made-to-order disinformation, using covertly recorded video footage of insiders, and revealed the strange background of Morel and other team members, who hailed from an organization accused of being a dangerous cult, which claimed allegiance to the effective altruism movement that Bankman-Fried promoted, and mysterious goings on after they apparently came into significant money, while having no product in the market.

In Case #3, August 2022, using dramatic new covertly recorded footage, we exposed that the Roche Freedman law firm was secretly financed with assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars from Ava Labs, Inc, the developer of the Avalanche blockchain, which some also expected would be disrupted by the Internet Computer.

On video shared by Case #3, their lead partner Kyle Roche revealed how their secret purpose was to attack competitors of Ava Labs, direct American regulators such as the SEC and CFTC towards competitors and away from them, harvest information from crypto companies they sued using legal discovery processes, and satisfy the vindictive whims of the founder of Ava Labs, Emin Gün Sirer — later, American judges investigated using depositions, and decided to kick them off numerous crypto cases, including their class action against DFINITY, and the law firm was eventually disbanded.

However, despite all the exposés we have published about Sam Bankman Fried (see Case #1, and Case #4), Arkham Intelligence (see Case #2 and Case #9), Ava Labs (see Case #3, Case #5, Case #6, Case #8 and Case #11) and coverage of events involving The New York Times (see Case #2 and Case #7), we have never been able to determine exactly how Sorkin at The Times was persuaded to publish Arkham's disinformation.

Nobody has been able to explain why the star journalist and media pundit of The Times, would risk his reputation by publishing Arkham's report — Arkham and its 21-year-old CEO, Miguel Morel, were previously unknown, had dubious backgrounds, and Morel was unlikely to be neutral, since his LinkedIn profile claimed a background in cryptocurrency trading and investments, and a key role in the creation of a fringe cryptocurrency. (The cryptocurrency has been described as an offshoot of the "cult" that provided it with funds.)

Now with Case #12, we present evidence of the involvement of Sam Bankman-Fried — the criminal financier we have linked to the price manipulation, who received supporting coverage from Sorkin before his downfall, including "puff-pieces" and invitations to major events.

Using more covert video footage, we present deep hidden integrations between FTX/Alameda Research/Bankman-Fried and Arkham Intelligence, expose their common connection to Sorkin at The Times via a PR firm, and reveal a mysterious $275,000 payment to them.

Arkham today

After launching their attack on the Internet Computer ecosystem, Arkham's team relocated from rural Texas to a luxury mansion in Chelsea, London (UK). They then worked on a product that tracks cryptocurrency addresses and transactions, which they released around 18 months later.

Now Arkham is moving on to a new project: building an international cryptocurrency exchange.

Using their funding, they are buying defunct cryptocurrency exchanges, which have licenses allowing them to operate, and combining them under the Arkham brand.

The history of the Web3 industry demonstrates that the character, integrity, and professionalism of cryptocurrency exchange operators is critically important. Exchange failures have repeatedly resulted in customer losses, which also negatively impact the reputation of Web3, harming all participants. Given the questions raised by our investigations, we believe Arkham's entry into the exchange business warrants careful scrutiny.

Arkham recently lost their entire compliance team, reflecting why elucidating exactly what happened with The New York Times is of importance:

The New York Times, after...

Neither Andrew Ross Sorkin nor The New York Times has ever commented on the evidence presented by Crypto Leaks.

However, after the DFINITY Foundation filed a defamation lawsuit against The Times and Arkham based on the evidence we presented in Case #2, The Times publishing another crypto villain puff piece — this time for Kyle Roche, the lead partner of Roche Freedman, the law firm we had covertly recorded discussing the firm's corrupt purpose.

The new crypto villain puff piece was so strange in nature that it left many of their normally loyal readers mystified.

The puff piece bizarrely presented Roche as a "sheriff" out to clean up crypto, and platformed his transparently self-serving and baseless claims that we variously drugged and intimidated him to cause him to invent the corrupt activities he described on camera, and another claim that he had to go into hiding in Brooklyn to escape parties related to DFINITY that supposedly wished him harm. (They photographed him in front of the Brooklyn bridge for effect.)

Kyle Roche in front of the Brooklyn bridge

Kyle Roche himself has now apparently exposed these claims as a pantomime of disinformation, after bragging in the media about his luxury real estate investments, including his purchase of "Buffalo's most expensive home" for his family, whose address he allowed to be made public. This is surely not the actions of a man who believes there might be people pursuing him who wish him harm — so it seems readers of The Times were misled again.

Our view is this: a free and fair press is essential to the functioning of our markets and democracy, and it is ultimately disastrous for society when it writes for other reasons — including defending a star journalist, or to ward off those who dare to challenge them.

We now progress to share the evidence.

Conversations with Arkham's people

Introducing Sachin Dutta

Sachin Dutta was hired as Chief Growth Officer, and successful in the role. He was hired directly by Miguel Morel. He appeared in our previous case about Arkham corruption.

The "FTX guy"

Dutta confirms that the Arkham leadership were close friends with the "FTX guy." They were planning to launch their new ARKM token on FTX.

Introducing Jean Guillaume Brasier

Brasier only worked at Arkham for 3 months, but was educated at Harvard and MIT and performed important work for them (our research shows Arkham Intelligence has great trouble retaining their new hires, despite receiving venture funding). His clear technical explanation of his role illustrates that he is likely a precise, honest and reliable engineering type.

Arkham's connections to Alameda Research

Brasier reveals that Arkham's services were supposed to be integrated into the FTX platform, reflecting Bankman-Fried's and/or Gary Wang's support for them. Brasier further mentions that they had close ties with people at Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's combined hedge fund and market maker, which he used to siphon billions of dollars of FTX customer money and assets for his personal purposes. Brasier says Alameda Research was a user of Arkham's blockchain analysis services.

With Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas

Brasier goes on to reveal that the leadership of Arkham was with Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas on the day before FTX crashed.

This demonstrates the strength of their ties, since in those final days, Bankman-Fried was highly focused on preventing his empire unravelling and exposing his thefts and frauds.
“ involved in the FTX crash ... which was a bit weird ... they [Miguel Morel and Arkham] were with Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas

Miguel Morel and Henry Fisher both knew Bankman-Fried

We ask Dutta whether he met Bankman-Fried. He says not, but he says that his CEO and CTO definitely have.

They were friends with Gary Wang

Miguel Morel and Henry Fisher, the CEO and CTO of Arkham Intelligence, knew Gary Wang, the CTO of FTX, who has pled guilty to serious criminal charges, from the San Francisco hacker house scene. Thus, the connection between Arkham Intelligence and FTX (and by implication, Alameda Research, since there was no real separation) goes way back, and they were far more than simple business associates.
“ they were friends with the CTO, Gary Wang ... so that's how they got to know each other

We are not alone in being interested in the connection between Sam Bankman-Fried and his team, FTX, Alameda Research, and Arkham Intelligence.

Crypto sleuths in the Web3 community have also been hard at work, with this Twitter thread showing how the crypto wallet of Henry Fisher, Arkham's CTO, received its first deposit from what appears to be one of FTX's corporate wallets.

Arkham's mysterious $275,000 payment to M Group

In our next videos, Dutta reveals that Arkham made a $275,000 payment to M Group, a PR firm he refers to as "FTX's PR people," while also mentioning again that Arkham's founding team were "close friends" with Sam Bankman-Fried.

Here are some key points to bear in mind about this new video:

  • M Group was a core part of FTX's PR (public relations) operations.
  • M Group boasts of having close links to The New York Times.
  • Dutta refers to M Group as "FTX's PR people."
  • Arkham chose to enlist with M Group, rather than hundreds of other firms.
  • According to Dutta, Arkham paid M Group $275,000 to receive PR services.
  • $275,000 is an unusually large sum for a startup to pay for PR services.
  • At the time of the payment, and for a year and a half afterwards, Arkham had no product that needed promoting to the press.
  • When Dutta joined as Chief Growth Officer, long after Arkham's disinformation had been published by The Times, he canceled the arrangement so that it did not recur — he apparently did not understand why they had signed up in the first place, and he does not share that the Arkham founders gave him an explanation.
  • Dutta says that a question about the purpose of the payment was raised in relation to the DFINITY defamation lawsuit. However, the lawsuit did not contain information about the payment (or Sam Bankman-Fried, since DFINITY was unaware of links when they filed) and was dismissed on a technicality before going to trial. Meanwhile, we are only sharing information about the payment now. So why did Dutta think the payment had been "raised in the legal case"? We wonder whether the question of how the payment could be explained in court was being discussed at Arkham, and this led to a misunderstanding.
  • It remains an open question whether the $275,000 payment related to the promotion of Arkham's disinformation to Sorkin at The Times.

In the video Dutta says:
“ they were paying way before they had a product.

Regarding why they were paying, Dutta says:
“ Well, I know it's a good question.

Dutta says the same question was raised in the DFINITY Foundation's defamation lawsuit. However, we are only just revealing information about the payment now.

He says:
“ That's what's been raised in the legal case.

In another interview, Dutta repeats that they had the same PR team as FTX and were close friends with Sam Bankman-Fried:
“ the same PR team that was doing FTX so they were close friends with Sam Bankman-Fried

Dutta explains how, as a newly joined Chief Growth Officer, he quickly cancelled Arkham's service agreement with M Group, because there was no need for it. He was unaware of the purpose of the arrangement, which was setup before he joined.
“ yeah, I put a stop to that straight away when I came in because it was a quarter of a million dollars every year they were paying and they hadn't even launched.

M Group has reportedly placed articles in The New York Times on behalf of FTX and Bankman-Fried, working closely with Sorkin:

M Group has also been accused of helping FTX and Bankman-Fried place negative press pieces about competitors, such as this WSJ article discussing issues at Binance, with journalists being offered a "black book."

Court records appear to confirm that M Group was paid more than $3M by FTX, as per this filing.

M Group has denied these allegations:

What next

Crypto Leaks will not stop investigating and will continue to act on all tips and evidence until we can incontrovertibly share how Arkham persuaded Andrew Ross Sorkin to publish their defamatory disinformation about the Internet Computer network, and who they created their report for.

We believe that our findings only hint at a much larger story, and more information will be uncovered. For example, what parties profited by trading the crash in ICP, and how were they related to Arkham's report, and its publication by The Times?

We invite Miguel Morel, Henry Fisher, Sam Bankman-Fried, Gary Wang, and Andrew Ross Sorkin to make statements — which we will share in this publication.

At this critical juncture, it would be a compelling gesture of goodwill if the current and previous investor directors of Arkham Intelligence put pressure on Arkham's leadership to come clean about what happened.



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