Chainfeeds Summary:
Polymarket is undoubtedly the most prominent Web3 application behind the recent US election. Although Polymarket has been favored by many big shots such as V God and is seen as a "truth machine", the platform has also been plagued by various controversies. This article aims to review the various concerns surrounding Polymarket, hoping to take a rational view of this platform.
Source:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Q_nWv3yqzzi8uMFwbTqpVQ
Author:
Techub News
Viewpoints:
Techub News: The political stance of the founder and investors: First, there are questions about the political stance of Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan and the platform's main investor Peter Thiel. Previously, Shayne Coplan has responded to the relevant questions, emphasizing that Polymarket adheres to a non-partisan stance and is not a political tool, and that Peter Thiel has no board seats or control. In addition to the "political stance" factor, Shayne Coplan's actions may also be just for promoting Polymarket, a pure "advertising offensive". "Real money betting may also be capital manipulation": In addition to questioning the political stance of the founder, the market also questioned whether there is "capital manipulation" in Polymarket's election prediction market. On October 18, The Wall Street Journal reported that the surge in Trump's lead on Polymarket was due to "hype" by capital. It pointed out that this surge could be a "mirage" caused by four Polymarket accounts. After review, Arkham Intelligence CEO Miguel Morel also stated that these 4 accounts belong to the same entity. However, according to the latest reports, this "whale" is a French investor named Théo, who claims that his huge bet is not due to "political stance", but only to "make money", and most of the invested funds are "available liquid assets". "Inflated trading volume": The public also has doubts about the real trading volume of the platform. Chaos Labs, a blockchain risk analysis company, pointed out that about one-third of the trading volume on the presidential prediction alone may be wash trading. Inca Digital found that the presidential election prediction trading volume reported on the Polymarket website is inconsistent with the on-chain data, with the actual trading volume being about $1.75 billion, while Polymarket reported $2.7 billion. "Outwardly compliant, but reckless in reality": In January 2022, Polymarket was fined $1.4 million by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for "operating in the US without registration". As part of the settlement agreement, the company promised to gradually stop its services in the US and ban US users from accessing the site. However, the fact is that a large number of US users can still access the website through VPNs and other means. In addition, according to a Bloomberg report, Meta's ad library shows that Blockratize, the owner of Polymarket, has recently spent about $269,875 on Facebook and Instagram to run election ads targeting millions of US users.
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