Nine anonymous cryptocurrency wallets have effectively gained control over who wins and loses on Polymarket’s most contested prediction market bets, giving a tiny group of unappointed people outsized power over billions of dollars of wagers.
Over the past year, nearly 2,000 Polymarket financial contracts have been disputed and adjudicated by the company’s complicated third-party resolution mechanism — including bets on war, elections and geopolitical conflict. In April alone, 230 contracts that attracted more than $1 billion in trading ended up being decided through the process, up from 79 contracts six months earlier, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of blockchain records and past votes.