Suspicions of insider trading are being raised as large sums of money are pouring into future prediction market products betting on the possibility of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
According to the British daily Guardian on the 23rd (local time), future prediction betting platform Polymarket recently placed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bets on a product asking whether a cease-fire will be reached between the United States and Iran by March 31. In particular, eight newly created accounts around the 21st were found to have invested approximately $70,000 (approximately 100 million won), betting on the conclusion of a ceasefire.
If an actual ceasefire is reached by the end of this month, the revenue that these accounts can collect is estimated to be about $820,000 (about 1.2 billion won). Most of the accounts in question were found to have been created late last week, raising the possibility that investors with non-public information may have spread their accounts and placed bets to hide their identities.
Platform developer Ben York explained, “There are cases where large investors utilize multiple accounts to minimize market impact or hide internal information.” However, some point out that it is virtually difficult to confirm whether an actual insider is due to the nature of the account being anonymous and betting being made with cryptocurrency.
At Poly Market, there was controversy over a case where a large sum of money was bet on a product related to the ‘possibility of a US invasion of Venezuela’. At that time, the possibility that certain users had used internal information from the U.S. government was raised, and questions about how the platform was operated continued to be raised.
As the controversy continued, Polymarket strengthened its regulations to restrict trading in products if users possessed non-public information or could influence the results. Another prediction betting platform, Kalsi, introduced measures to ban election-related trading by political candidates and related betting by sports players.
This movement is also in line with the trend of strengthening U.S. political regulations on the industry. Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and Republican Senator John Curtis proposed a bill to ban sports-related predictive betting on this day, and if the bill is passed, it is expected to put a strain on the business prospects of related platforms such as Polymarket.
Reporter Jeong Ji-yeon
