Vitalik Buterin earned $70,000 from trading on Polymarket. Photo: Decrypt
Vitalik Buterin , co-founder of Ethereum, said he earned approximately $70,000 in profit over the past year trading on the decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket , with an initial Capital of around $440,000.
Vitalik Buterin revealed that he earned $70,000 on the prediction market Polymarket last year with a principal of approximately $440,000. Vitalik describes his profit strategy as "anti-insanity mode," which involves identifying markets driven by irrational frenzy and betting that…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 28, 2026
This information was Chia by Vitalik in a recent discussion and subsequently cited by Wu Blockchain on social media. According to him, profits don't come from predicting sensational scenarios, but from a strategy that goes against the psychology of the crowd, which he calls "anti-insanity mode."
Vitalik often looks for markets where probabilities have been pushed too far from reality due to FOMO , rumors, or panic. In those cases, he chooses to bet that extreme scenarios will not occur. For example, he mentions prediction markets such as: Trump winning the Nobel Peace Prize or the US dollar falling to zero amidst a crisis…
"Essentially, it's about looking at markets where the crowd is overestimating the likelihood of an extreme event, and betting that reality will be more normal," Vitalik explained.
Polymarket is a blockchain-based prediction market platform that allows users to bet on the outcomes of real-world events, ranging from politics and economics to social and technological topics. The price of each contract reflects the probability that the market assigns to the event's occurrence. The higher the price, the greater the market believes the event is likely to happen, and vice versa.
According to Vitalik, this very mechanism makes the Polymarket highly susceptible to distortion when the community is dominated by sensational news, herd mentality, or fear of missing out. When these factors appear, market prices no longer reflect true probabilities, but rather extreme fears or expectations.
The $70,000 profit therefore didn't hold much financial significance for Vitalik, but it was valuable as an experiment in market behavior. He viewed the prediction market not just as a tool for making money, but as a way to observe how people react to risk and uncertainty.
Vitalik acknowledges that the prediction market is one of the few sectors poised for explosive growth in 2025. However, he argues that most current markets remain short-term and focused more on entertainment than on creating social value.
Currently, Polymarket mainly revolves around questions such as whether Bitcoin will rise or fall in the next hour, or which team will win the next game… According to him, these markets, while technically sound, contribute very little to society's long-term decision-making.
Vitalik is particularly interested in the Futarchy model proposed by Robin Hanson – where people vote to choose a goal (e.g., increase GDP, reduce unemployment), and the prediction market decides the optimal course of action to achieve that goal. This is the approach that can fully exploit the potential of the prediction market as a tool for synthesizing information and making decisions, rather than just a gamble on events.
In addition to market prediction, Vitalik also stated:
Crypto is succeeding financially but failing at the social application level;
– SocialFi is easily turned into a tool for spamming and speculation;
– DAOs currently have many limitations in terms of governance;
– In the AI era, Ethereum should Vai as a decentralized “world computer.”
He concluded that if crypto were to become merely a place for speculation, that would be the true failure scenario for the industry.
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