The authors of the examine examined roughly two months of five-minute bitcoin contracts. They discovered unusually giant orders on Binance within the last seconds earlier than settlement, adopted by fast worth reversals in bitcoin.
The paper didn’t show merchants’ intent or instantly set up that the spot-market orders have been positioned by the identical folks holding positions on Polymarket. Nevertheless it discovered that, excluding market makers, 93% of the losses in home windows categorized as manipulated fell on retail merchants.
“A guess the market handled as near-certain was overturned one time in three,” the authors wrote.
Polymarket didn’t reply to a CoinDesk e-mail requesting extra info.
Prediction market issues
Earlier than the July-dated examine, Variance Lover, a pseudonymous onchain analyst, raised related issues, together with in a single intensive and detailed publish dated Might 21.
“By now, most individuals are conscious that market manipulation has grow to be a significant downside on Polymarket’s 5-minute crypto markets. The mechanism is easy: accumulate a big place on Polymarket, then transfer the value on Binance in the course of the settlement window to pressure the market to resolve in your favor.”
An Axis Robotics contributor who goes by 郡主Christine on X, on Might 11 famous that manipulation in Polymarket’s five-minute bitcoin market was changing into extra extreme, citing “exact reversals in the previous couple of seconds.”
