An investigation by on-chain analytics firm Bubblemaps has uncovered a cluster of nine wallets on the Polymarket prediction market that netted $2.4 million from bets on U.S. military operations in Iran with a 98% win rate.
"This is like winning the lottery multiple times. Luck alone cannot explain the numbers,” Deebs, the head of investigations at Bubblemaps, told CBS's 60 Minutes, where the findings were first revealed.
The anonymous accounts, created just before the U.S. began its bombardment of Iran in February, flawlessly predicted the timing of U.S. strikes, the ousting of a key Iranian leader, and a subsequent ceasefire. The accounts only placed a few small, losing bets, which Bubblemaps believes were intentional misdirection.
The findings intensify scrutiny on prediction markets and the potential for insider trading on geopolitical events, coming just weeks after a U.S. soldier was charged for allegedly using classified intelligence to make over $400,000 in similar bets.
The Paris-based Bubblemaps specializes in visualizing blockchain data, turning millions of anonymous transactions into readable patterns. According to their analysis, the nine wallets were all interlinked. While the blockchain provides a permanent and public ledger of all transactions, users can remain anonymous, identified only by their wallet addresses.
Nicolas Vaiman, the CEO of Bubblemaps, noted that there is no direct evidence linking the accounts to the U.S., aside from one wallet named "whopperlover." The investigation traced the winnings to the centralized crypto exchange Bybit, with funds also touching other platforms like Binance and HTX.
This incident follows the recent arrest of Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. soldier who allegedly used classified information to profit from bets on America's operations concerning Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. While some proponents of prediction markets argue that allowing "insider" information makes the markets more accurate, the pattern of flawless, high-stakes betting on sensitive military events has drawn concern from lawmakers.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
