Unusual trading patterns totaling more than $600 million have emerged across two international election markets on Polymarket's offshore platform, long after the races had effectively ended. Rather than reflecting genuine electoral interest, the vast majority of this liquidity was channeled into contracts backing long-shot candidates who ended up losing by massive margins. Financial researchers and market forensic investigators argue that these patterns indicate extensive volume manipulation, potentially driven by traders attempting to position themselves for a future cryptocurrency distribution.
Ethiopian Parliamentary Race Triggered Bizarre Trading Inversion
During summer elections in Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed secured another five-year mandate after his Prosperity Party won 438 parliamentary seats, while the nearest opposition party captured only 13 seats. Under normal circumstances on prediction exchanges, trading volume reflects an outcome's realistic probability, with heavy liquidity pooling around clear frontrunners. In the Ethiopian market, however, the financial mechanics operated in reverse.
Traders wagered a modest $173,000 on Ahmed securing the leadership, contrasted with over $41 million transacted on his chief of staff, Shimelis Abdisa, taking the top post. In total, cumulative trading volume surged past $285 million, almost entirely directed toward candidates who were never in serious contention.
Paired Wallets Rotated Contracts Back and Forth
Forensic analysis carried out by MSR Decode, a predictive-market intelligence firm led by former Polymarket trader Chris Park, revealed that roughly $284 million of the total Ethiopian volume originated from specific pairs of accounts repeatedly buying and selling identical positions with one another. Rajiv Sethi, an economics professor at Barnard College who studies prediction market dynamics, noted that the trading was plainly an artificial effort to manufacture volume.
Addressing the matter, Shana Bautista, Polymarket's head of global intelligence and investigations, stated that their internal monitoring flagged the anomalous behavior, investigated the network, and barred the responsible accounts from executing further trades. The company did not clarify how the offending accounts managed to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions before any preventive restrictions took effect.
Extended Resolution Windows Created 'Zombie Markets'
The persistence of these trades was facilitated by Polymarket's operational settlement timeline. The terms for the Ethiopian contract dictated that resolution would occur in October, aligning with the prime minister's formal swearing-in ceremony. Consequently, the betting venue remained active for several months after Ahmed's victory was cemented in reality. Over a stretch of 123 days following the election, waves of counterintuitive trades continued uninterrupted, drawing bewildered reactions from users across the platform.
Sethi designated this phenomenon a 'zombie market'—a setting where speculators can execute contracts on events that have already been settled or no longer retain any real-world uncertainty.
Romanian Election Setup Saw 99.6 Percent Artificial Activity
A parallel situation unfolded in a market tracking the 2024 elections in Romania, where Sethi identified what he described as even more pronounced irregularities. The original vote had been canceled due to concerns over foreign interference, leading authorities to reschedule the race for several months later. Rather than deactivating the initial prediction market, Polymarket kept it active while simultaneously launching a separate market for the rescheduled contest.
An algorithmic detection model developed by Sethi and his colleagues to uncover wash trading flagged virtually the entirety of the original Romanian market's liquidity as suspicious. In specific weeks, 99.6 percent of the recorded turnover represented wash trading. Wash trading involves entities executing simultaneous buy and sell orders to generate artificial liquidity without assuming market risk. The practice is strictly illegal on regulated US financial exchanges and directly violates Polymarket's own contractual terms.
Airdrop Farming Motive Behind Nine-Second Holding Periods
Data reviewed by MSR Decode pointed to 'activity farming' as the primary motivation behind the Ethiopian anomalies, rather than sophisticated automated trading strategies seeking arbitrage margins. In decentralized finance ecosystems, participants frequently generate artificial platform volume in hopes of receiving allocations during an eventual token airdrop. Polymarket chief marketing officer Matthew Modabber previously stated on a cryptocurrency podcast in 2025 that a native token would eventually be introduced, though he provided no specific framework. Sethi corroborated that token allocations pegged to historic volume represent a plausible incentive structure.
Andre Guettler, who directs the Institute of Strategic Management and Finance at Ulm University, highlighted that these trades reflect the classic mechanics of farming prospective airdrops. Examination of more than 38,000 rapid transaction loops in the post-election Ethiopian contract showed that over 98 percent resulted in a net gain or loss of zero for both participating wallets. Across these accounts, the median holding time for contracts before flipping them back was merely nine seconds.
Broader Scrutiny Surrounding Volume Metrics and Platform Growth
Unusual speculative activity has surfaced repeatedly on prediction venues. Earlier this year, substantial capital entered Polymarket contracts predicting the 2028 US presidential race for figures such as Elon Musk and New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, neither of whom meets constitutional eligibility requirements due to foreign birth. Rival exchange Kalshi faced similar community questions regarding perpetual cryptocurrency futures on X, prompting a blog post denying wash trading allegations—a position Sethi supported by attributing the turnover to market maker incentives.
Polymarket's commercial stature has expanded rapidly following a financing round exceeding $1 billion led by 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. serves as a partner. That capital raise valued the operator at roughly $21 billion, alongside reported annualized revenues exceeding $1 billion. Because gross trading volume serves as the central metric for assessing market adoption, artificial inflation directly distorts user activity benchmarks. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees domestic prediction platforms and has previously investigated market manipulation matters on Polymarket, declined to comment on whether an inquiry into these specific election contracts is underway.
