How a five-second trick let traders drain millions from Polymarket
After months of public warnings from onchain analysts, the prediction market is moving to time-weighted prices to make artificial price pushes too costly.
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Summary
- Polymarket is replacing single-price snapshots with time-weighted average prices for its short-dated crypto markets after research and trader complaints highlighted widespread settlement manipulation.
- A study of five-minute bitcoin contracts found patterns of large last-second Binance trades that appeared to move prices before settlement, with most resulting losses in likely manipulated windows borne by retail traders.
- The new system, which uses Chainlink Data Streams and short TWAP windows, mirrors safeguards used by rival platform Kalshi, which relies on regulated price indexes and moving averages to make brief price distortions harder and costlier.
