🤑 Fake Trades, Real Chaos: Polymarket’s 25% Phantom Volume Exposed! 🕵️‍♂️

by

Markets

What to know:

  • 🤥 Columbia’s nosy researchers claim nearly 25% of Polymarket’s trades are as real as a chocolate river in a dentist’s office.
  • 🏈🗳️ Some weeks, over 90% of sports and election trades were flagged as fishier than a trout in a top hat.
  • 🎮 Wash trading? More like wish trading-aimed at gaming incentives, not making a penny (or a USDC). How quaint!

Ah, Polymarket! The blockchain’s answer to a betting shop, where the odds are as wobbly as a giant peach. According to some clever clogs at Columbia University, nearly a quarter of its trading volume is as genuine as the smiles at a witch’s tea party. Wash trading, they say-a practice so sneaky, it makes the Twits look like amateurs. 🧼✨

In a paper thicker than Mr. Wonka’s rulebook, the researchers pored over two years of onchain data. Their verdict? A whopping 25% of Polymarket’s trades involved users buying and selling contracts faster than the BFG changes his socks-often to themselves or their chums. All to puff up those activity metrics like a giant’s ego. 🤡📈

Wash trading, of course, is as welcome in traditional finance as a fox in a henhouse. In crypto? It’s about as common as a golden ticket in a chocolate bar. But hey, who needs rules when you can hide behind a wallet address, eh? 🦊💰

The study’s juiciest tidbit? Fake trades peaked at 60% in December 2024-just in time for the holidays! 🎄 And sports and election markets? They were hit harder than Augustus Gloop in the chocolate pipe. Some weeks, over 90% of trades were as authentic as a glass elevator in a factory.

The researchers, bless their cotton socks, whipped up an algorithm to sniff out these shenanigans. Wallet behavior, trading loops, clusters of accounts-they caught it all. One cluster of 43,000 wallets (yes, 43,000!) was responsible for nearly $1 million in volume, mostly at prices cheaper than a squirrel’s lunch. 🌰💸

And the best part? Many of these traders didn’t even bother making a profit. No, no-they were after bigger fish, like token airdrops or platform rankings. Because who needs money when you can have bragging rights? 🏆💨

Polymarket, with its no-ID-required, fee-free wonderland, is like a playground for mischief-makers. And that rumored token? Just the cherry on top of this manipulative sundae. 🍒🤯

Not everyone’s buying the doom and gloom, though. Harry Crane, a stats professor with a penchant for contrarianism, reckons it’s all a ploy by legacy media to discredit these markets. “Control the narrative,” he says. Sounds like someone’s been reading too many conspiracy theories in the Great Glass Elevator. 📰🤔

But the Columbia crew isn’t having it. Inflated volume, they say, is like a bad case of the fizzies-it distorts everything. Their solution? Network-based algorithms to flag these naughty traders and restore trust. Because who doesn’t love a good cleanup? 🧹✨

Polymarket, meanwhile, is busy with its U.S. comeback tour, token in hand and a $15 billion valuation in its sights. Will they address the wash trading? Only time will tell. Until then, it’s business as usual in this wonky world of blockchain bets. 🎢🤑

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2025-11-07 22:15