A Polymarket user account that earned approximately $400,000 from a perfectly timed bet on the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has become inaccessible on the platform, raising significant questions about transparency and potential insider trading in prediction markets.
The account, identified as "0x31a56e," placed roughly $32,000 on a market predicting Maduro's removal as president just before news broke of his capture by U.S. military and law enforcement. As of Thursday, January 8, around 1:00 p.m. UTC, the account's public page returned an error message stating, "Oops… we didn’t forecast this," while other user profiles remained accessible. Cointelegraph confirmed the link is now a dead link.
Polymarket has not issued any public statement and did not respond to requests for comment on whether the account was deactivated by the platform, deleted by the user, or affected by a technical glitch. The platform's privacy policy states users can request the deletion or return of all personal data, including backups.
Archived data from the Wayback Machine reveals the account placed a series of related wagers beyond the Maduro outcome. These included bets on whether U.S. forces would be in Venezuela by January 31, whether the U.S. would "invade Venezuela" by that date, and whether President Donald Trump would invoke war powers against Venezuela by the deadline.
Blockchain records on Polygon show the address linked to the account received about $436,700 in USDC from Polymarket's CTF Exchange on January 3 at 1:41 p.m. UTC. Hours later, at 11:54 p.m. UTC, roughly $437,800 in USDC left the address, indicating the winnings were swiftly withdrawn after the bets settled.
This incident occurs amid growing scrutiny of high-profile bets and unusual trading activity on prediction markets. The debate over insider trading has extended beyond the crypto community, with some U.S. lawmakers, including Representative Ritchie Torres, backing legislation aimed at curbing such activity on these platforms. The news follows a separate case where a trader with a reported 100% win rate placed a bet on the U.S. striking Iran by the end of January, further fueling industry scrutiny.
