Donald Trump's odds of winning the US presidential election rose to more than 53 percent last week after he defeated moderate front-runner Kamala Harris in the polls.
The increase fueled speculation of a hoax, focusing on a user named “Fredi9999” who collected more than 7.8 million Trump shares. Data It shows.
The user drew attention to their methodical method of raising stocks, especially in the battlefields of Pennsylvania.
Some market participants speculated that Freddie's big bets could be tied to billionaire Elon Musk, coinciding with pro-Trump statements from the field's social media accounts.
While there is no direct evidence to support this theory, observers say the user's high bankroll and interest in Trump fit the profile of the ex-president's zealous and wealthy supporter.
“It's hard to know for sure if someone is simply overconfident in Trump's chances or if there is a systematic attempt to change market perception,” said John Stefanidis, CEO and founder of the prediction and betting platform Real World Gaming. Decrypt.
“Even so, the nature of the polymarket means that things will be outsourced over time as real sentiment expands,” Stefanidis added.
The mechanics of Polymarket are simple. A stock price of $0 to $1 reflects the probability of an outcome. For example, if a candidate's stake is 63 cents, the market assigns a 63% chance of winning.
Traders can buy shares of the candidate they believe will win, and by the time the event is over, the winning candidate's stock has risen to $1. Low odds result in cheap stocks, and vice versa.
In any case, Trump's rising hopes on the platform are not currently supported by polling data or significant campaign developments. Instead, it is being fueled by speculative betting and passion among some users, some say.
No matter how irrational the bet, Trump has an extraordinary number of people on the board who vote for Trump alone. Adam Cochrane, A crypto fund Cinneamhain Ventures partner, tweeted on Monday.
As debaters appear to be driven by strong personal beliefs rather than systematic market behavior, they create a feedback loop that distorts market outcomes.
FiveThirtyEight founder and Polymarket consultant Nate Silver echoed this sentiment in part, attributing the recent surge to a combination of market boredom and speculative trading.
“A couple of people have asked me what's behind this, and my theory is that there isn't much,” Silver wrote in one. Newspaper on Monday. “Sometimes market sentiment has a mind of its own, and this can happen especially when traders are bored and angry because they're stressed.”
He acknowledged that in the past people were able to bet on influencing public opinion, but noted that it is now less likely because of the liquidity in the prediction markets. In other words, it has become artificially expensive to hold long positions on high bets, Silver writes.
Instead, most of the bets seem to come from “true Trump believers” or opportunistic traders, Silver said.
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