Original|Odaily Planet Daily(@OdailyChina)
Author|Wenser(@wenser 2010)
As a hot sector that has continued to rise since the beginning of the year, the prediction market is no stranger to wealth creation miracles.
But behind these miracles, it takes a discerning eye to tell whether they are genuine wonders achieved through shrewd timing and nimble maneuvering, or false hype created through artificial manipulation and obfuscation. Recently, a Polymarket trader on X claimed to have achieved an "8300x miracle," turning a $12 initial stake into over $100,000 through betting, but was quickly exposed for allegedly using multiple accounts for造假 (fraud) and traffic炒作 (hype). Meanwhile, another trader leveraged price manipulation of XRP to net $230,000 in the "15-minute price prediction" section, executing a one-sided harvest against Polymarket's betting bots.
On the stage of betting for or against, some want to dance with lies, while others exploit rule loopholes for clever plunder. In the bet of right and wrong, there is no unbeatable strategy, only flexible tactics.
The 8300x Miracle from $12 to $100,000: Polymarket's Living Billboard VS Traver's Fabricated Scheme
The story begins with a post "recounting the journey from a $12 principal to $100,000 in profit, achieving an 8300x return."
On January 16th, trader ascetic posted, stating that through "all-or-nothing bets on Bitcoin's short-term volatility," they doubled their principal 16 times consecutively, ultimately achieving the milestone of $100,000 in profit from $12. They also emphasized that they "specifically shared their betting strategy and reasoning" during the process.
Subsequently, they dropped their Polymarket account link in the comments, bluntly stating that such wealth creation miracles can only happen on Polymarket (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Does this sound familiar? Similar phrases have been used by traders for platforms including but not limited to OpenSea, Blur, Pump.fun, Hyperliquid, Aster, etc.).
The comments section then erupted into a "frenzied celebration by Polymarket community members," with countless congratulations, even Polymarket's Head of Global Growth, LeGate, chiming in: "Congrats bro! I think you deserve it! Congrats on the @PolymarketTrade badge!" (Odaily Planet Daily Note: This account is for Polymarket's active trader community.)
If you thought this was a常规 (routine) "overnight riches brag post," you might have underestimated the drama level.
Soon, the narrative of the "8300x return miracle on Polymarket" took a sharp turn.
From Betting Miracle to Fabricated Scam: 8300x Return Data Questioned
On the same day, January 16th, a trader named Moses, who自称 (claimed to be) "ranked 515th in Polymarket trading for 2025," questioned trader ascetic's account data: "Did you ever wonder why his account balance was $3000 in the first post? The answer is simple: he runs a massive 'Sybil farm.' He didn't start with $12, but with hundreds of accounts, each funded with $10 to $20. Once one account reached $2900, he started posting. Since then, he's made seven trades, all wins.
But note, he bets his entire stack every time. Real traders don't do that. He's just chasing clout, doing whatever it takes to get it.
Failing to get enough volume, he even seems to use other accounts for wash trading to hit his desired price.
Please do your own research before blindly trusting 'influencers.' The attached images show some of his failed Sybil accounts, which only made up to $1000."
Moses later added in the comments that all accounts were created 7 months ago and consistently participated in random markets, all starting the same challenge on the same day 2 months ago. The whole "$10 to $100,000" story is fake!
Not only that, he posted screenshots and links to the alleged Sybil account homepages:
- Account 1: https://polymarket.com/@brockmatthew;
- Account 2: https://polymarket.com/@wellscandice;
- Account 3: https://polymarket.com/@jbryan.
Although ascetic later responded in the comments that the wallets and accounts mentioned by Moses were unrelated to him, and some members of the ZSC DAO (a Polymarket trader community) also voiced support, calling Moses's actions a cyber attack, the association between ascetic's previous bot-like reply content, his Polymarket account, and numerous accounts with similar behavioral patterns significantly undermined the credibility of this "8300x return miracle."
Some commenters also expressed confusion about the motive, stating that "winning 7 consecutive bets" itself is impressive; but others pointed out it was still a game of "bot-like widespread casting of nets."
Somewhat ironically, Moses's own bio reads "The journey from $1 to $1,000,000"—whether this is a real track record or a personal goal remains unknown.
Compared to the hard-to-verify ascetic, the following case of a trader profiting $230,000 through price manipulation in the XRP "15-minute up/down betting market" might be more worthy of study for whale players.
Trader Uses Binance Spot to Counter-Harvest Prediction Market: $1M Principal Nets $230K Profit
On January 18th, Polymarket trader PredictTrader revealed a trader's操作 (operation) worthy of a "Wolf of Wall Street" drama—by harvesting liquidity from trading bots, he made $233,000 in just a few hours, largely unnoticed by the market.
The timing chosen by this trader, a4385, was also extremely clever—it was Saturday evening, with thin market liquidity and relatively poor liquidity on the Binance spot order book.
In the "XRP Up/Down—Jan 17th, 12:45-1:00 PM ET" market, he heavily bought "Yes" shares.
His counterparties were the common "individual market makers" on Polymarket—various trading bots. (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Market making on Polymarket is relatively simple, with low barriers to entry for individual developers, making trading bots very popular). By 10 minutes into the event, XRP was down about 0.3% from the opening price, but he had pushed the price of "Yes" shares up to 70%. The trading bots saw a profit opportunity but instead fell into the price trap set by this trader, selling him more "Yes" shares.
Ultimately, the trader bought $77,000 worth of "Yes" shares at an average price of 48%.
Then, just 2 minutes before the event settled, a wallet on Binance bought approximately $1 million worth of XRP spot, pushing its price up about 0.5%; seconds after the event settled, this $1 million in spot was quickly sold off.
In other words, the cost of this price manipulation was—approximately 0.25% one-way trade slippage + fees.
Using a Binance VIP Level 4 account (0.06%) (easily obtainable) and 0.25% two-way slippage, the total cost would be around $6,200, and the actual operational cost might be lower. By repeating this operation multiple times and exploiting the weekend liquidity漏洞 (loophole), this trader drained the funds of several bot wallets.
Some bots were shut down in time, while others reacted too slowly and lost all their funds—including @aleksandmoney, who lost an entire year's profits (about $160,000).
a4385 Polymarket account link: https://polymarket.com/profile/0x506bce138df20695c03cd5a59a937499fb00b0fe
In conclusion, we hope traders betting for or against on prediction markets can distinguish fact from appearance. Sometimes, the truth is not always objective, and the standards and rules judged by the platform are man-made.
