The team behind the decentralized trading platform P2P.me has publicly disclosed and apologized for placing bets on the Polymarket prediction market related to its own $6 million fundraising round. According to a disclosure published on X, the team opened positions 10 days before the capital raise went live, wagering on whether the project would hit its funding target.
At the time the bets were placed, P2P.me had only a single oral commitment for $3 million from venture firm Multicoin Capital, with no signed term sheets or guaranteed allocations. The project ultimately raised $5.2 million, causing the prediction market to resolve to "no" and resulting in a loss for the team's positions. The team's Polymarket account, named "P2P Team," shows an all-time profit of over $23,480.
In its statement, the team acknowledged the ethical breach, stating: "Trading on an outcome you can influence erodes trust. We don't believe we were trading on a done deal, but we recognize reasonable people can see it differently... Not disclosing at the time was a mistake we own." The team confirmed that any profits from these prediction market activities will be funneled into the project's MetaDAO treasury, the reserve for the decentralized autonomous organization governing the platform.
As a corrective measure, the P2P.me team is liquidating all open positions on Polymarket and has adopted a formal company policy prohibiting trading on prediction markets related to its own activities.
This incident occurs amid increased scrutiny from US lawmakers on prediction markets for potential insider trading. Congress members Adrian Smith and Nikki Budzinski recently introduced the "PREDICT Act," aiming to ban the US president and lawmakers from participating in such markets. Competing legislation has also been introduced to curb political insider trading on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have announced their own countermeasures.
