The authors of the study examined roughly two months of five-minute bitcoin contracts. They discovered unusually giant orders on Binance within the closing seconds earlier than settlement, adopted by fast worth reversals in bitcoin.
The paper didn’t show merchants’ intent or immediately set up that the spot-market orders had been positioned by the identical individuals holding positions on Polymarket. But it surely discovered that, excluding market makers, 93% of the losses in home windows categorised as manipulated fell on retail merchants.
“A wager the market handled as near-certain was overturned one time in three,” the authors wrote.
Polymarket didn’t reply to a CoinDesk electronic mail requesting extra info.
Prediction market issues
Earlier than the July-dated study, Variance Lover, a pseudonymous onchain analyst, raised comparable issues, together with in one extensive and detailed post dated May 21.
“By now, most individuals are conscious that market manipulation has develop into a serious downside on Polymarket’s 5-minute crypto markets. The mechanism is straightforward: accumulate a big place on Polymarket, then transfer the value on Binance throughout 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 May 11 noted that manipulation in Polymarket’s five-minute bitcoin market was turning into extra extreme, citing “exact reversals in the previous few seconds.”
