A single account made a profit of 16 million, and 3.6 billion US dollars rushed into Polymarket to bet on the election

shushu

24-11-06 18:17

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During the entire election period this year, the most popular application in the cryptocurrency circle, in addition to Pump.Fun, should be the prediction market Polymarket. Due to the excellent operation of Polymarket during the election, coupled with the promotion of Trump and some KOLs, the positioning of "who can bet on the next president on Polymarket" was quickly spread. The transaction volume related to the president continued to increase as the election night approached, until noon on November 6, when too many people flocked to the Polymarket website, causing its server to crash briefly.

Throughout the election cycle, compared with the predictions of traditional polling agencies, the changes in odds on Polymarket have always been highly sensitive to the news. Funds always come before news. When the swing states have not yet decided the winner, Trump's chances of winning on Polymarket have already increased.

Polymarket's prediction transactions on the election have accumulated a total transaction volume of $3,612,184,597, with Republican candidate Trump's transactions on Polymarket close to $1.48 billion and Democratic candidate Harris' transactions at $1.01 billion.

Leading traditional polls, popular

On November 6, Polymarket data showed that Trump's chances of winning had experienced significant fluctuations. At 1 a.m., Trump's chances of winning were 59.4%, having risen to 63% earlier. By 9:46 a.m., Trump's chances of winning had risen to 71.1%, while Harris's chances of winning had fallen to 29.1%. As of 11:17 a.m., Trump's odds of winning climbed further to 88.6%. Since then, Trump has been leading in key swing states, and the odds on Polymarket have changed rapidly, and everyone is talking with money.

According to Protos data, Polymarket and Kalshi compared the election odds with The New York Times (NYT) and Nate Silver, and their differences are obvious. For example, on October 31, Trump's chance of winning the US election was 66% on Polymarket, but only 48% on The Hill.

Looking at a wider sample, the average of traditional polling agencies such as Nate Silver, NYT or FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump and Harris have been within a few basis points of each other in the past period. Obviously, judging from the results, the results given by Polymarket based on trading activities are more convincing than those of traditional private institutions.

On November 6, according to data from the app analysis platform SensorTower, the regulated prediction market platform Kalshi is currently ranked first in Apple's financial application category and also ranked first in the free application ranking. At the same time, Polymarket has also risen to second place in the free application rankings, which is the highest ranking of these two applications to date.

Who wins and who loses

The crypto prediction market has always been regarded as a product with strong cyclicality and only specific application scenarios, such as political elections and sports events. As the US election cycle draws to a close, the next development of Polymarket will be the focus of many people's attention, but at present, the most eye-catching is the $3.6 billion election transaction. Under the heavy bet, French trader Théo spent $45 million on Trump, and eventually became the most profitable user on Polymarket.

In August, Théo sent dozens of emails to Wall Street Journal reporters criticizing mainstream media polls that he believed were biased toward Harris. In a Zoom call, he claimed that Democratic-backed media were paving the way for social unrest by touting a tight race, when he expected a landslide victory for Trump. Théo said he was surprised by the attention his trading received and began making low-profile bets in August, buying millions of dollars in contracts for a Trump victory using the username Fredi9999. At the time, odds on Polymarket for Trump and Harris to win were roughly even.

To avoid wild price swings, Théo spread his bets over multiple days. Still, as his bets grew, Théo noticed that other traders would avoid quotes when Fredi9999 bought, making it difficult for him to place bets at the prices he wanted. So he created three more accounts in September and October to mask his buying.

If Trump wins the election and wins overwhelmingly as he expects, Théo could make more than $80 million, doubling his bet. His main bet is that Trump wins the electoral vote, and he is betting millions more on Trump winning the popular vote - a scenario that many observers consider unlikely. In addition, he is betting on Trump to win in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Today, the election results are finally announced, and one of Théo's accounts, Fredi9999, has made a total profit of $16.47 million.

Taking the four betting options under the "Who will win the presidential election" transaction with the largest trading volume on Polymarket as an example, BlockBeats lists the users with the largest profits and losses below.

Trump

The figure below shows the distribution of users' betting shares on whether Trump will be elected president on Polymarket. The "supporters" on the left represent users who believe that Trump will be elected, among which the largest holder "zxgngl" holds 29,473,073 shares and currently has a total profit of $11.315 million. Other major supporters include the aforementioned "Fredi9999" and "walletmobile".

The "opponents" on the right are users who believe that Trump will not be elected. The largest holder "I95153360" holds 7,107,980 shares and currently has a loss of $1.192 million.

Harris

The following figure shows the distribution of bets on whether Harris will be elected president by users on Polymarket. The "supporters" on the left represent those users who believe that Harris will be elected. The largest holder "leier" holds 10,871,056 shares and currently has a total loss of $4.99 million. Other major supporters include "StarVoting" and "Ly67890".

The “opponents” on the right are users who believe that Harris will not be elected. The largest holder is “COMMA-luh”, who holds 4,878,533 shares. In addition, this user also bets on the “Trump will be elected president” transaction, with a total profit of over $210,000.