Popular predictions market Polymarket has reportedly been paying social media influencers based in the United States to promote election-related content ahead of the upcoming 2024 US Presidential elections.
According to a Bloomberg report, in September Polymarket’s senior director of Growth Armand Saramout created a sponsorship deal with US influencers, and over the past few weeks large social media pages have been creating content sponsored by the predictions market under hashtags “#PMPartner” and “#PolymarketPartner.”
The predictions market is notably barred from allows traders based within the United States to trade on its platform, over regulatory restrictions imposed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The regulator fined Polymarket for offering unauthorized services, with the platform agreeing to cease operations within the US as a result.
Bloomberg’s report details that last month, Polymarket was conducting new checks to verify whether whales on its website were based outside of the US, at a time in which many were betting on Republican candidate Donald Trump to win the elections.
As reported, a massive cryptocurrency whale known as “zxgngl” has withdrawn $2.36 million in the USDC stablecoin from leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, seemingly in a bid to double down on their Polymarket bet that former U.S. President Donald Trump will win the upcoming elections.
According to popular on-chain analysis service Lookonchain, the whale has withdrawn a total of 14.2 million USDC from the leading cryptocurrency trading platform since October 11, with most of those funds seemingly going into their Trump bet.
At the time of writing, Polymarket data shows that zxgngl holds a $13.28 million position on Donald Trump winning the 2024 US Presidential election, and is sitting un an unrealized loss of $855,000 with their 22.91 million shares.
The cryptocurrency whale has been aggressively adding to their position over time and is now the largest holder of shares betting on Trump winning the presidential race after taking over another cryptocurrency whale, Fredi9999, who currently holds 21.18 million shares.
The prediction market’s parent company, Blackratize, reportedly also spent nearly $270,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads targeting people in the US, telling viewers “Don’t trust the polls – trust the markets.”
Featured image via Unsplash.
