Wallet activity suggests Polymarket may have an insider trading problem

Polymarket saw multiple examples of insider trading in the past weeks. Now, a pattern has emerged to potentially point at KPMG insiders betting on company earnings. 

Several wallets on Polymarket are making surprisingly accurate bets on company earnings. One common thread is that all the companies use KPMG as their auditor, raising concerns of yet more insiders swaying the markets and extracting value. So far, there is no clear identification of any KPMG insiders, but the patterns hold true for a series of wallets targeting specific prediction pairs. 

Previous cases of insider markets have included an Israeli reservist, as well as the more recent case of betting that the Axiom market was part of an investigation by ZachXBT. Other suspected sources of insiders include OpenAI employees and even one of the prominent Polymarket affiliates. 

Insider information on viral markets can lead to significant gains, and the activity is entirely unlimited, as Polymarket remains permissionless and anonymous. 

Researchers noticed that Polymarket models were often much more accurate than chance or even an expert prediction. Users also noticed that some of the top traders focused on specific company earnings markets, where all of the entities were audited by KPMG. The traders acted with confidence, even with markets that flipped in the last moments before resolving. 

Are earnings reports leaking on Polymarket?

Analysts noted a cluster of wallets, which focused on the company earnings section of Polymarket. The section contains 155 prediction pairs with two options on exceeding or failing to cover the expectations on earnings for the respective past periods. 

The section contains markets with only a few hundred dollars in volumes, as well as more active pairs with nearly $200K in activity. 

A cluster of users is showing a pattern of making high-conviction bets just before the earnings are disclosed to the public. Not all of the wallets are tracked or chosen for copy-trading, as they select niche markets. The users only bet on KPMG-audited companies and switched wallets often to avoid drawing attention.

Polymarket has the ability to create pairs where the outcome could be known in advance. This creates an opening for insiders to make confident bets while avoiding more uncertain markets, such as crypto price predictions. 

Polymarket has previously stated it would not discourage ‘sharps’ from making more informed bets, but the insider knowledge remains worrying for the market’s fairness. 

Prediction markets suffer post-Super Bowl slump

Prediction markets logged peak activity in January, but February may arrive with a slowdown. The end of Super Bowl predictions opens both Kalshi and Polymarket to a slower period, where other types of markets may gain importance. 

Polymarket is still the leader in terms of active on-chain users with regular small predictions. The platform also hosts a wider number of uncategorized markets, allowing for potential insider trading based on niche knowledge.

In February, prediction markets had a total volume of around $21B, down from over $26B in January. Polymarket reached $7.34B in volumes, slightly down from $7.6B in January.

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