Report Warns Prediction Markets Could Tip Foreign Adversaries to Sensitive US Military Operations

A new report suggests that more than 150 cryptocurrency wallets trading on Polymarket’s international prediction market platform may have bought and sold event contracts using nonpublic information about US military operations.

The analysis comes from the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC). The Washington, DC-based research group claims to power investigations and research into the world’s most damaging forms of corruption.

The ACDC, in its report, “Classifying Insider Trading Risk,” says it’s identified 152 wallets that primarily or only engage in military markets involving US events. The ACDC labels these suspicious accounts as “Orcas,” a play on “whales,” or those who regularly win and prey on a betting pool’s small fish.

“Darting through this feeding frenzy are the Orcas, highly specialized, incredibly successful bettors who appear, strike their target, then, often, disappear again into the depths of the blockchain,” read the ACDC executive summary.

Military Information

Orcas, the ACDC claims, primarily participate in US military events and make “longshot” trades. A longshot trade is a trade in excess of $2,500 on shares with probabilities below 35%, or 35 cents each.

The Collective said military markets have the highest success rate for longshots across the Polymarket international platform, representing an “outsized insider trading risk.”

The 152 suspicious Orcas were found to have placed $2 million in trades, winning $8 million. They experienced a win rate of 97.2%, averaging $52,514 per wallet.

The ACDC suspects that 648 wallets held by Whales and Bots have identified the Orcas and made timely longshot trades based on the Orcas’ activity.

“Longshot bets by Orcas preceded longshot bets by Whales and Bots. This supports the hypothesis that Whales and Bots, which observe transactions on the blockchain, may enter the market in response to signs of insider trading like risky longshot bets by fresh or low-activity wallets, akin to Orcas,” the study concluded.

Alarm Comes as White House Embraces Prediction Markets

On Wednesday (Aug. 19), President Donald Trump hosted crypto and tech leaders at the White House, including Michael Selig, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates prediction markets. The president said those present were ensuring that the US leads in crypto and innovative financial markets like prediction markets.

“The people in this room are ensuring that the future of commercial markets, crypto markets, and the prediction markets are pioneered and perfected right here in the USA,” Trump said in the Roosevelt Room. “We’re ensuring that America remains the undisputed leader, not only in bitcoin and crypto, but in technologies like prediction markets.”

The Polymarket accounts analyzed by the ACDC were on Polymarket’s international operation, and not its US-facing, CFTC-regulated platform.