A group of whales tried to manipulate PolyMarket odds for Harris over Trump.
According to Dumpster DAO, this group or individual used $9 million USDC to buy bets in favor of the democratic candidate.
The attempt eventually failed, as other traders quickly rebalanced the market, causing the crypto whale to lose $60,000.
Despite the manipulation, Trump currently leads with 52% of the odds in his favor as of 9 September.
Prediction markets have become increasingly popular, especially as the 2024 US presidential elections approach.
One of the most popular of these, PolyMarket, has garnered massive attention for being the top destination for punters, especially as the odds it provides give market participants an idea of what might happen in the future.
Take the election, for example.
If Harris has the leading bet on the betting site, speculators generally believe that the same might apply in the actual elections and vice versa with Trump.
However, over the weekend, disturbing reports came to light:
Polymarket, being free and open to all, isn't invulnerable to manipulation. What if someone (or a group of people) opened massive bets for a particular outcome in an attempt to sway public opinion?
This is precisely what happened last weekend, with someone spending a whopping $9 million on manipulating PolyMarket.
Over the weekend of 6 September, a research group known as Dumpster DAO posted a detailed yet interesting thread on X.
According to this thread, a very obvious attempt to manipulate Polymarket’s “Presidential Election Winner” bet came to light on Friday.
This comes just as Donald Trump is starting to lead Kamala Harris once again in the race to the white house.
According to Dumpster DAO, whoever the manipulator was focused on the market’s derivative bet.
This bet was based on whether Trump or Harris would win on a given day, based on Polymarket’s main bet for the November event.
In total, the attacker reportedly deployed a massive $9 million worth of USDC to push the odds in favor of Kamala Harris.
Dumpster DAO noted that whoever operated these “whale accounts” placed massive bets on “yes” for Kamala Harris and “no” for Trump.
This artificially inflated Harris' odds compared to Trump's in an attempt to take advantage of this brief surge.
Harris’ price per share reportedly jumped from $0.02 to $0.20 in what appeared to be a pre-election landslide at the time.
However, things went badly for the whale operators. The market quickly self-corrected when traders saw the opportunity to buy cheap shares for Trump.
This quick rebalancing between several small investors and a few large whales eventually led to said exploiter(s) losing over $60,000 in the process.
So what odds are PolyMarket showing now?
According to the prediction market, Trump now holds a narrow lead over Harris, with 52% for Trump and 47% for Harris.
Current odds on 9 September
This is interesting, considering that Trump had 50% compared to Harris's 48% on September 7.
Overall, as the recent happenings indicate, even prediction markets backed by blockchain are not immune to manipulation attempts.
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