Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates the pseudonymous Polymarket whale named “Théo,” also known as “Fredi9999,” has made a net profit of $78.7 million on U.S. election bets. These included wagers on Donald Trump to win the presidency, the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and the popular vote — an outcome many saw as unlikely.
Théo came to prominence earlier in the election campaign amid allegations of manipulation related to a single entity managing multiple accounts on the decentralized predictions platform, seeking to skew the odds in Trump’s favor.
Polymarket's own investigation in October claimed there was no evidence of market manipulation following large U.S. election whale bets, supporting the view that prediction markets simply reflect all available information at a given moment, according to analysts at trading and financial services firm Presto. The platform’s U.S. presidential market generated nearly $3.7 billion in trading volume during the campaign.
At the time, Polymarket revealed that a whale behind four large accounts who spent more than $45 million on Polymarket bets for Trump to win the U.S. presidential election was a French national with extensive trading experience and a financial services background.
However, fresh data from Chainalysis late Wednesday suggests the whale appeared to control a total of nine Polymarket accounts based on their funding patterns, timing of transactions and cash outs to specific crypto exchange deposit addresses.
“Based on Polymarket’s calculations, these addresses appear to have earned a net profit of nearly $79 million betting primarily on a Trump victory,” Chainalysis said — larger than previously reported estimates following the market's resolution.
French whale's Polymarket net profits. Image: Chainalysis.
According to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday, Théo took a different approach to analyzing voting intentions. Picking up on alternative polls asking people, “who are your neighbors voting for?” rather than “who are you voting for?” the trader noticed they had Trump overperforming. This prompted the French national to commission their own poll to confirm the data in a bet against the accuracy of traditional polling methods.
Traditional polls failed to account for the “shy Trump voter effect,” Théo told the WSJ. “Either Trump backers were reluctant to tell pollsters that they supported the former president, or they didn’t want to participate in polls.”
“What a killer example of how betting markets can surface contrarian, high-quality signals,” one community member said on X.
The election result is something of a vindication for Polymarket, with detractors pointing toward prediction platforms having a mixed elections track record, whales skewing the market or potential bias due to a dominance of men, crypto-natives and non-U.S. traders using the platform. “Legacy media can't comprehend that their polls were wrong and Polymarket was right,” Casa co-founder and CSO Jameson Lopp said on Wednesday. “Money talks. You just have to listen.”
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the French national gambling authority, Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), is investigating the operation and compliance of Polymarket with French gambling laws amid a surge in demand during the U.S. election and scrutiny over Théo’s betting activity on the platform.
The ANJ may ban access to Polymarket users in the country, French crypto news outlet The Big Whale first reported on Wednesday.
Online gambling is strictly regulated in France, and any new gambling market requires prior authorization from the ANJ.
U.S. users are already theoretically banned from using the decentralized platform following Polymarket’s settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in January 2022 over charges of offering unregistered event-based binary options contracts. However, some users may attempt to bypass restrictions using a VPN, and regulated alternatives like Kalshi also gained popularity in the country during the election amid the firm’s September court victory against the same agency.
The Block reached out to the ANJ for comment. Polymarket declined to comment.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
