Last month, Polymarket confirmed that a French bettor had placed considerable sums on the election of the Republican candidate. According to the Wall Street Journal, he is a French national called Théo, a former trader who did not want to publicly reveal his last name.
Specializing in the analysis of cryptocurrency transactions, Chainalysis carried out cross-checks and identified 11 accounts with similar characteristics. They were fed at the same time, made bets at the same time, and were emptied simultaneously, according to data collected and cross-referenced by Chainalysis.
The player bet some $70 million in total on the victory of the Republican candidate, ultimately recovering this sum, as well as an additional $85 million. Contacted by the “Wall Street Journal”, he confirmed that he had indeed made a profit of this amount. Asked by AFP, Polymarket did not immediately respond.
Polymarket is an offshore betting platform launched in 2020, on which you can only bet in cryptocurrency. It is theoretically prohibited for American residents. Like other betting sites, Polymarket gave Donald Trump a marked advantage before the election, contradicting polls that put him neck and neck with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
All accounts identified by Chainalysis as belonging to the same person appear in the top 20 biggest gains published by Polymarket.
According to several American media, the New York home of the CEO and founder of the platform, Shayne Coplan, was searched on Wednesday by agents of the FBI, the American federal police. According to the “New York Post”, the FBI seized the Polymarket boss’s phone as well as other electronic devices. The origin and purpose of the investigation remain undetermined.
A Polymarket spokesperson described the investigation to the Axios news site as “political retaliation on the part of the government (…) for predicting the result of the presidential election.”
