Crunching numbers in prediction markets. Betting against the herd.
Joined April 2024
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Quant Chad retweeted
Polymarket top traders lost >$12.6M betting on Bolsonaro to win the Brazilian presidential election at 82% odds.
why did they get it so wrong ?
Because they convinced themselves that they knew better than polls
📅 October 4 - Bolsonaro upset in the 1st round
The first-round results drop :
Bolsonaro: 47.03%
Lula: 45.16%
Bolsonaro overperforms the previous polls by+5 points.
Polymarket traders are gain confidence that the polls overestimate Lula.
Polymarket odds : Bolsonaro: 84%, Lula: 16%
📅 October 23 - Traders ignore the contradictory polls
Datafolha's new poll drom for final round shows a statistical tie:
- Bolsonaro: 50%
- Lula: 50%
Yet Polymarket barely reacts.
Traders are confident in that the polls again underestimate Bolsonaro.
📅 October 25 - Election day : the polls were right
Bolsonaro enters election day as the overwhelming favorite.
Polymarket odds at 2:45 PM: Bolsonaro: 82%, Lula: 19%
But then we got the final election result:
- Lula: 51.79%
- Bolsonaro: 48.21%
Turns out Datafolha's poll showing 50-50 results was actually underestimating Lula.
That's why you must always stay flexible in Prediction Markets.
Quant Chad retweeted
0.3% of wallet generate 70% of Polymarket's volume.
that's only 10k wallets out of 3.2M.
Whales are carrying the platform.
The concentration is INSANE:
- Top 0.3% of wallets: 70% total volume
- Top 1%: 80.3%
- Remaining 99%: 19.7%
But trading profits are even more concentrated:
- Top 100: 28.6% of all profits
- Top 1,000: 55%
- Top 10,000: 79.4%
So if you are not in these 10k (0.3%) you probably have a negative PnL
And that's how things are supposed to work.
It's the basic economic cycle of a trading platform :
The platform attract retails -> retail attract whales -> whales create volume -> volume entails fees for the platform.
So if you ever ask yourself why Polymarket (or any other platform) tend to resolve controversial markets in favor of whales.
Remember that you are not the one making them money, whales are.
0.3% of wallet generate 70% of Polymarket's volume.
that's only 10k wallets out of 3.2M.
Whales are carrying the platform.
The concentration is INSANE:
- Top 0.3% of wallets: 70% total volume
- Top 1%: 80.3%
- Remaining 99%: 19.7%
But trading profits are even more concentrated:
- Top 100: 28.6% of all profits
- Top 1,000: 55%
- Top 10,000: 79.4%
So if you are not in these 10k (0.3%) you probably have a negative PnL
And that's how things are supposed to work.
It's the basic economic cycle of a trading platform :
The platform attract retails -> retail attract whales -> whales create volume -> volume entails fees for the platform.
So if you ever ask yourself why Polymarket (or any other platform) tend to resolve controversial markets in favor of whales.
Remember that you are not the one making them money, whales are.
Quant Chad retweeted
Will there be a new frontier AI model this month?
Claude Fable 5.5 or GPT Terra?
Grok 4.8 - maybe?
Best odds on the AI Race from
@Kalshi @Polymarket @trylimitless and @HyperliquidX
Just $POLY
Quant Chad retweeted
Leverage for Prediction Markets will never be big.
At best it's a niche product.
Each dot is a type of Polymarket trader with 5x leverage, priced so the lender breaks even. Further right = more of them end up better off. Higher = the lender makes money on them. Bigger = more of the volume.
No group reaches 50%. In every one, most traders end up worse off with leverage than without.
Now look at the two dots furthest right, pros and sports bettors. Both are below zero: the lender loses money on them.
The highest dots? Retail and bonders, the people who want leverage most and get hurt by it.
And the giant dot is whales, almost three-quarters of all the money. They're sitting on cash. They don't need a loan.
So it loses money on the traders it helps and makes money on the ones it hurts. That's a niche, not a market.
The audience for leverage is thin / no in the market yet.
Full case study in comments
Quant Chad retweeted
The CFTC is cracking down on Sports prediction markets.
It just banned exchanges from proposing new type of sports contracts.
Looks like regulator are tying to slowly choke out sports markets
The CFTC contacted @Novig and @ProphetX and ordered them to take down the following markets :
- Who scores the 1st points in a basketball game?
- Will any NFL end with a final score never seen before?
- Will an MLB game produce a never-before-seen score?
- Who will score the 1st point in a Football game?
They argue that these categories are prone to manipulaton.
If you remember it's the same argument that they used to force Kalshi to ban Sports mention markets
Regulations are dropping at an increasing rate :
- July: CFTC forces Kalshi to ban bets on sport mention.
- September: The CFTC send a warning about "manipulation risks" in mention markets in general
- October (Now): The CFTC bans first goal and scorigami markets
---- next ----
- The CFTC bans mention markets ?
- The CFTC drops sports market entirely (reclassied as gambling) ?
Is the Trump admin starting to turn against prediction markets ? Or is the CFTC just trying to hedge their bets for when Democrats come to power ?
Leverage for Prediction Markets will never be big.
At best it's a niche product.
Each dot is a type of Polymarket trader with 5x leverage, priced so the lender breaks even. Further right = more of them end up better off. Higher = the lender makes money on them. Bigger = more of the volume.
No group reaches 50%. In every one, most traders end up worse off with leverage than without.
Now look at the two dots furthest right, pros and sports bettors. Both are below zero: the lender loses money on them.
The highest dots? Retail and bonders, the people who want leverage most and get hurt by it.
And the giant dot is whales, almost three-quarters of all the money. They're sitting on cash. They don't need a loan.
So it loses money on the traders it helps and makes money on the ones it hurts. That's a niche, not a market.
The audience for leverage is thin / no in the market yet.
Full case study in comments
Quant Chad retweeted
The real question: is W. Legate actually loyal to anyone?
> Become a Thiel Fellow
> Start as a left-wing Democrat bashing Trump
> Found a pillow startup Lose your co-founder
> Pivot to conservative and join Kalshi
> Jump ship from Kalshi to Polymarket
> Pump shady influencer campaigns for growth
> Go full Republican retweeting racist posts
Say what you want about Legate. The man wears a lot of hats.
Is he a genius marketer who knows exactly how to adapt and find his place in the sun, or a carefully planted psyop?
What side are you on? | EP. 5
The CFTC is cracking down on Sports prediction markets.
It just banned exchanges from proposing new type of sports contracts.
Looks like regulator are tying to slowly choke out sports markets
The CFTC contacted @Novig and @ProphetX and ordered them to take down the following markets :
- Who scores the 1st points in a basketball game?
- Will any NFL end with a final score never seen before?
- Will an MLB game produce a never-before-seen score?
- Who will score the 1st point in a Football game?
They argue that these categories are prone to manipulaton.
If you remember it's the same argument that they used to force Kalshi to ban Sports mention markets
Regulations are dropping at an increasing rate :
- July: CFTC forces Kalshi to ban bets on sport mention.
- September: The CFTC send a warning about "manipulation risks" in mention markets in general
- October (Now): The CFTC bans first goal and scorigami markets
---- next ----
- The CFTC bans mention markets ?
- The CFTC drops sports market entirely (reclassied as gambling) ?
Is the Trump admin starting to turn against prediction markets ? Or is the CFTC just trying to hedge their bets for when Democrats come to power ?
Quant Chad retweeted
🚨 Polymarket just fired it's its CMO @MatthewModabber after he got caught paying influencer to promote FAKE TRADES !
Shayne Coplan tried protect Modabber but the board overruled him.
Moddaber organized an influencer promotional campaign using fake bets and undisclosed ads to promote the site.
WSJ investigated 1,105 promotional videos from the campaign.
It found:
- $1.9M in simulated bets presented as real.
- 118 videos showing nearly $900K in fake winnings.
- Bets that would actually have lost over $166K being shown as winning
Moddaber tried to pretend that he had nothing to do with it and the influencers acted on their own
But the investigation revealed he personnaly organized it all.
- > $350K in payments to fraudulent influencer came from Modabber's personal PayPal account.
- anorher $2.5M was sent from his account to 800+ suspected participants of the campaing.
- he had Polymarket build a fake copy of its own website to stage the trades
This is a BIG blow for Shayne !
Moddaber was his childhood friend and last solid ally at polymarket.
Now that Moddaber has been pushed out he's truly alone.
And it comes after he just got caught by investors using the company's money to fly private jets and cover personnal expenses.
His position has never been weaker.
It's clear that investors have lost confidence in him.
Quant Chad retweeted
Polyguana is aware of the php2shell exploit, eMudhra (emSign) CA leak & Node.js CVE-2026-111497.
Don't care. Because
- we do NOT use PHP
- we do NOT use Indian root certificates (not even in our packages)
Points distributing as expected & Still the cheapest prices in prediction markets
NEW STUDY : Polymarket KOLs are bad traders and you will lose money if you follow them.
We all knew it, but it's nice to finally have proof.
A study by Prediction Market Census tracked 307 Polymarket influencers, their wallets and the call they made on social media.
Here's what they discovered 👇
1. Their calls are trash.
Researchers matched 162 public KOL trading calls to their earlier trades.
On those exact same bets:
- avg. KOL return: +12.3%
- avg. Follower entering when posted: −2.4%
If you see a KOL posting shilling a trade opportunity, it's already too late and they are using you as exit liquidity.
1. KOLs are WORST traders than average.
> 57.5% of KOL accounts lost money trading.
> 50.5% of non-KOL accounts with similar trading volumes lose money.
So remember. No competent trader is going to give you free alpha.
If they have alpha, they will keep it to themselves.
If they pretend to have alpha, they are farming you for refferal revenue.
Kalshi just got scammed by a fake Indian Chief !
They wanted to sign a deal with a tribe to launch a Kalshi branded prediction market.
but the chief they signed with was an IMPOSTOR.
Kalshi is trying to gain the support of Native American by bribing they with juicy partnerships.
They thought they had struck a deal with Wilson Yargee, Chief of the Quassarte tribe.
Except Wilson Yargee was not the real chief.
the next the actual Chief of the Quassarte denounced the deal saying :
- His leadership NEVER approved the deal.
- He only discovered it through a CNN report.
- The opposing faction had no authority to sign on behalf of the tribe.
Turns out the Alabama-Quassarte tribe has 2 rival chiefs fighting for power. Samuel Marshall Jr. (legit) and Wilson Yargee (impostor), each with their own supporting factions.
Now the legality of the deal rests on this succession dispute :
> The legitimist faction behind Marshall say the deal is void since Yargee is not the real chief.
> The impostor faction, backed by Kashi, insists the deal is legitimate and that Yargee is the real chief.
Kalshi thought they were smart trying to buy the support of tribes before their supreme court case and now they are stuck solving Tribal succession disputes.
Well deserved.
This gem of an article went almost unnoticed. Go read it
frontofficesports.com/articl…
Quant Chad retweeted
LMAO Kalshi just signed a deal with a fake tribal chief !
They tried to sign with a Native American tribe to launch a Kalshi partnered prediction market.
Except the chief they signed with was an IMPOSTOR.
Kalshi has been trying to court the support of Native tribes with the following deal :
- The tribes launch their own branded prediction market apps.
- Kalshi provides the exchange, liquidity and infrastructure.
- Tribes receive a percentage of trading fees.
They already signed 5 tribes and thought they had just signed a 6th when they struck a deal with Wilson Yargee, the chief of the Alabama-Quassarte tribe.
But the next day, Samuel Marshall, claiming to be the actual Chief denounced the deal saying :
- His leadership NEVER approved the deal.
- He only discovered it through a CNN report.
- The opposing faction had no authority to sign on behalf of the tribe.
Turns out the Alabama-Quassarte tribe has 2 rival chiefs fighting for power.
Samuel Marshall Jr. (real) and Wilson Yargee (impostor), each with their own supporting factions.
Now this dispute turns into a legal conflict :
> The legitimist faction behind Samuel Marshall say the deal is void since Yargee is not the real chief.
> The impostor faction, supported by Kashi, insists the deal is legitimate and that Yargee is the real chief.
Kalshi tried cynically buy the support of Native Americans tribes in their upcoming supreme court battle for the legality of prediction markets.
Now they are looking forward to a long legal process trying to adjudicate a Triblal succession dispute.
Quant Chad retweeted
Robinhood allegedly preparing a NINE-FIGURE grant program for Robinhood Chain.
That's >$100M for builders.
Most of it likely going to Prediction Markets.
that's *at least* 100x the previous $1M grant program they announced in February.
This will make RobinHood chain's activity EXPLODE.
The initial hype and grant program made growth skyrocket when they launched the chain in July.
in only 2 months from launch RobinHood achieved:
- $53.3B in monthly DEX volume
- 10.8M daily transactions peak
- Over $1B in stablecoin supply
But since mid September, the momentum started fading :
- Daily transactions down 42%
- Active addresses down 31%
- Bridge TVL down from $855M in September to $648M now.
I see this play as a massive cash injection by Robinhood to try and regain their early momentum
If we go by the previous program the money will be distributed to teams building :
- Tokenized asset infrastructure
- AI-powered financial services
- Credit and lending protocols
- *Prediction market infrastructure*
This is an amazing opportunity for builders in the space.
Because let's be real, Polymarket/Kalshi never really went out of their ways to reward builders.
No real grants. No promotion. No technical support.
So If you are a Prediction Market builder I strongly recommend you look into the incoming RobinHood grant program.
the future of Prediction Markets might be on RobinHood chain.
Quant Chad retweeted
Haseeb is NOT telling you the full truth!
Here’s what actually happened behind closed doors with Shayne, Tarek, Peter Thiel, Mustafa, ICE, and one key player Bloomberg conveniently left out (you already know who).
This is total nonsense.
We're one of the largest early investors in Polymarket, and this story that Shayne was "caught red-handed" using company money is just a flat out garbage hit piece.
Shayne wasn't taking a salary. He was 21 when he started Polymarket, he was living hand-to-mouth running the company out of his apartment, barely making ends meet when he was raising his seed round. We were his first term sheet and literally offered to loan him money personally, but he ended up not needing it when the seed round came together.
After COVID and the crazy Biden-era crackdown on crypto that was happening at the time, there was a lot of chaos in almost every company in the industry. As an investor, we saw a lot of companies go through pandemic-era startup craziness, and Polymarket was no exception.
But Shayne disclosed every dollar he spent, which turned out to annualize to about a software engineer's salary. That's including the flights, none of which were personal flights. Plus, SHAYNE STARTED the accounting and payback process, no one “found” it. In aggregate, it was nothing that an investor would balk at. He paid it back to the company in full, and then got on a normal salary like everyone else.
It was an accounting problem, not an integrity problem. It was not a big deal.
Polymarket has had growing pains, no doubt. It went from a small fledging startups to one of the most explosive consumer brands in America. But Shayne has leveled up alongside the company, and as investors we have total confidence in him.
Enough of this stupid FUD.
The end.
