Not just futures moving? The predictive market also hints that a "mole" knows Trump is about to post...

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On March 24, Financial Associated Press (Editor: Xiaoxiang) speculation surrounding whether there was insider trading behind Trump’s social media post last night is rapidly escalating…

Just after 7 AM Eastern Time, Trump posted on Truth Social that he has instructed a five-day pause on all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. His rationale was: “The U.S. and Iran have engaged in a productive dialogue aimed at thoroughly and comprehensively resolving our hostile status.”

Once this post was released, global financial markets reversed their previous trends in the overnight trading session, showing a stark contrast. However, there are signs that several accounts on the prediction market platform Polymarket were already making large bets that this war would end as soon as this month before Trump publicly disclosed this information…

It is reported that up to 10 recently opened accounts on Polymarket have invested tens of thousands of dollars in contracts related to a “U.S.-Iran ceasefire,” betting that a ceasefire would occur before March 31 or April 15. These accounts combined have wagered about $160,000 on the ceasefire agreement, and if an agreement is reached by the end of this month, they would reap over $1 million in profits.

These accounts were first identified by a user named Lirrato on platform X on Sunday, and subsequently shared by PolymarketHistory.

After Trump’s post on Monday, these 10 accounts have seen their related prediction market positions increase by over $300,000 in unrealized gains.

At this point, you might still think it’s just a coincidence. However, among the identified 10 accounts, one account named “NOTHINGEVERFRICKINGHAPPENS” is particularly intriguing. This account was opened in late February, with its first two transactions betting $7,600 that the U.S. would strike Iran before the end of February 28, and $11,283 that strikes would occur before March 1. This account won over $85,000 from these two bets.

Now, this account has bet $8,005 that the U.S. and Iran will ceasefire before March 31, and has added a bet of $15,614 that a ceasefire will happen before April 15. The value of these two bets has currently increased by over $30,000.

The timing of these bets and past records have led some to suspect—whether these Polymarket accounts belong to insiders, that is, individuals with political connections to the U.S. or Iran, who understand the current diplomatic status not yet known to the public.

Ben Yorke, a former researcher at CoinTelegraph, who is now developing an AI trading platform called Starchild, stated that these wallets “absolutely look like they belong to someone who possesses insider information.”

Many online cryptocurrency observers and experts have pointed out that these bets exhibit signs of insider trading—both because they bought at very low market prices at the time (reflecting that the probability of this event occurring seemed low to people then), and because some accounts appear to belong to the same investor, who may be attempting to conceal their identity by spreading bets across multiple wallets.

Yorke pointed out, “Normally, when you see someone splitting their wallets and deliberately obscuring their identity, there are two scenarios: either a large investor is trying to protect their position from market shocks, or it’s insider trading.”

Currently, the probability prediction on Polymarket for a U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement before March 31 has significantly increased over the past few days, rising from 6% on March 21 to 24% on Monday. Currently, over $21 million in bets have been placed on this outcome.

Is the futures market movement an isolated case?

In fact, Financial Associated Press reported earlier in the morning that between 6:49 AM and 6:50 AM New York time, around 6,200 Brent crude oil and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures contracts changed hands, just 15 minutes before Trump made his statement. A rough estimate suggests that these oil trades had a nominal value of about $580 million.

At around 6:50 AM New York time, the trading volume of S&P 500 mini futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also suddenly surged, breaking the previous calm of pre-market trading. Due to the typically low liquidity in pre-market trading, this volume spike became one of the biggest moments of the day up to that point.

The timing of the surge in trading volumes for these stock index futures and oil futures has caught the attention of many Wall Street traders, especially given the lack of obvious catalysts at the time.

Similarly, the early bets in the prediction market seem to indicate that the futures market’s unusual movement is not an isolated case. In recent months, prediction market companies have been plagued by scandals related to insider trading. A recent example was when a Polymarket trader bet at the beginning of the year that the U.S. would take military action in Venezuela, and profited over $400,000. Just days after this trader placed the bet, the U.S. announced the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Another prediction market platform, Kalshi, recently banned two traders on its platform for insider trading. This was the first time the company publicly disclosed an investigation into insider trading on its platform.

On Monday, Polymarket announced it has updated its rules regarding insider trading. The new rules explicitly prohibit trading based on stolen confidential information, trading based on illegal insider information, and trading when Polymarket users have the ability to influence the outcome of events.

Polymarket’s Chief Legal Officer Neal Kumar stated in a statement, “The prosperity of the market is built on transparency. The strengthening of these rules makes our expectations for all participants on both platforms exceptionally clear and highlights the compliance infrastructure we have established.”

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Editor: Li Tiemin