历时4个月，Polymarket帮特朗普抓到了军事行动泄密者，但代价是……

Original by Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author: Golem (@web3_golem)

Not long after, facing the jury, Sergeant Major Gannon Ken Van Dyke would surely recall that moment standing on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima, waiting for the sunrise.

On the night of January 2, 2026, President Trump ordered U.S. troops to raid Venezuela and capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. By the early morning of January 3, the mission was complete. The Maduros were taken to the USS Iwo Jima and transported to the United States. Hours later, 38-year-old Sergeant Major Van Dyke, holding a rifle, stood on deck with three other soldiers for a photo, sharing it on social media. The atmosphere was relaxed, but he couldn't share the joy in his heart with anyone.

Because he was a leaker—an insider who used confidential information to make huge profits on Polymarket. Days before the U.S. military operation, Van Dyke had placed a series of bets on Polymarket, including whether Maduro would step down before January 31, 2026, and whether the U.S. military would attack Venezuela before that date. Van Dyke wagered a total of $33,933, ultimately profiting over $409,000—a return of over 1200%.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke

Van Dyke was not the only one profiting from insider information during this operation. According to the Odaily Seer Channel, before the Venezuelan president's arrest, three addresses on Polymarket had placed early bets on his ouster, collectively profiting $630,400. Specifically, address 0x31a5 (0x31a5...8eD9) invested $34,000 to profit $409,000; address 0xa72D (0xa72D...eBd4) invested $5,800 to profit $75,000; and address SBet365 invested $25,000 to profit $145,600.

At the time, there was much speculation in the market about the identities of these insider addresses, but no one knew that the most profitable address belonged to Van Dyke.

To cover his tracks, after seeing reports of insider trading related to the mission, Van Dyke deleted his Polymarket account and changed the email address registered with his crypto exchange account in an attempt to conceal evidence of the trades.

Nevertheless, after a nearly four-month joint investigation by Polymarket and the U.S. Department of Justice, Van Dyke was caught.

On April 23, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Van Dyke. He faces charges including illegal use of classified government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, commodity fraud, wire fraud, and illegal monetary transactions. The DOJ stated that Van Dyke is expected to appear in court in North Carolina at a later date, and his defense attorney information has not yet been released.

This is the first time U.S. authorities have arrested an insider for using classified information to bet on a prediction market. The final verdict could have far-reaching implications for the pervasive insider trading behavior in future prediction markets.

But before this, Polymarket's newly introduced enhanced market integrity rules had already made insiders uneasy.

Polymarket's Enhanced Market Integrity Rules

On March 23, Polymarket released enhanced market integrity rules, incorporating them into its terms of use. The new rules explicitly prohibit insider trading and any transactions by individuals who could influence the outcome. Specifically, the following three behaviors are banned:

• Trading with Stolen Confidential Information: Users are prohibited from trading in any contract if they possess confidential information about the likely outcome of an underlying event and using that information would violate a pre-existing duty of trust or confidentiality owed to another person or entity.
• No Trading Based on Illegally Obtained Inside Information: Users are prohibited from trading based on confidential information obtained from a person who owes a pre-existing duty of trust or confidentiality, if the user knows or has reason to know that the person providing the information would themselves be prohibited from trading on it.
• No Trading When Able to Influence the Outcome: Users are prohibited from trading in any contract if they have the power or influence to affect the outcome of the underlying event. Users are also prohibited from trading at the direction of a person who has such power or influence.

To help users better understand what constitutes insider trading, Polymarket also provided specific examples in its main site and U.S. site market integrity rules. Examples include soldiers not betting on upcoming military operations, political election candidates not betting on their own election results (or encouraging others to), and company CEOs not betting (or encouraging others to bet) on "mention markets" involving themselves.

To effectively combat such insider trading, Polymarket also established a multi-layered monitoring system. When Polymarket or the community (Odaily note: any user can now report suspicious trading activity) detects suspicious activity, Polymarket initiates a review, and if necessary, takes disciplinary action, bans wallet addresses, files legal proceedings, or refers the matter to law enforcement.

Before Van Dyke's arrest, insiders might have thought Polymarket's market integrity rules were just a bluff. After all, on a platform without KYC and settled in cryptocurrency, identifying the individuals behind on-chain addresses is extremely difficult, and Polymarket wouldn't be willing to do it.

But that notion is naive. Firstly, current regulatory and on-chain tracking technologies are already very sophisticated and powerful. Users might not KYC on Polymarket, but they certainly would on exchanges or other on/off-ramp channels. Except for top-tier hackers, average users have nowhere to hide from such investigations. Secondly, to gain support from U.S. regulators, Polymarket will actively cooperate with law enforcement to investigate insider trading. For a classic case like Van Dyke's, they will spare no effort, regardless of cost.

With this analysis, if you are someone with inside information on some minor event, you might still think you can get away with it—unlike Van Dyke, who traded on such a high-profile event, or perhaps you are not a U.S. citizen, so U.S. regulators or Polymarket can't touch you.

Of course, Polymarket and regulators cannot treat every insider trading case like Van Dyke's. For small-scale, low-impact insider trades, identifying the real identity of the insider or pursuing legal action would be overkill. But Polymarket has another trump card for dealing with these insider trades—address bans. And this is the rule that all insiders and users truly need to fear, and it is even shaking Polymarket's core narrative.

The Cost

On April 23, prediction market Kalshi disclosed that it had fined three congressional candidates who bet on their own election results and banned them from the platform for five years. You might think they made huge profits? In reality, the total fines for the three candidates were less than $8,000, with one of them placing a bet of only $100.

Kalshi’s ability to handle insider trading so swiftly is thanks to the KYC and compliance system built since its inception. However, if such a small-scale, low-impact insider trade were to occur on Polymarket, it might not even be noticed, let alone dealt with.

This is not Polymarket turning a blind eye to insider trading; rather, self-regulation on Polymarket is inherently difficult. Due to the lack of KYC, low barriers to account creation, and on-chain anonymity, Polymarket cannot manage and scrutinize users like Kalshi. This creates a breeding ground for insiders. When the economic incentives for insider trading are high enough and the risks are low enough, human nature is susceptible to temptation.

Odaily Planet Daily previously analyzed, when insiders used Polymarket to profit illegally from the Maduro capture operation, that insider trading is a double-edged sword for Polymarket (Related reading: When War is Settled Before the News: How Prediction Markets "Priced" the Maduro Capture Operation 6 Days Early).

On one hand, insider trading often means releasing information ahead of mainstream media, which brings Polymarket trading volume and a speed of information disclosure that surpasses media outlets. Pricing events early and predicting outcomes has gradually become Polymarket's core narrative. On the other hand, insider trading also means information leaks, which naturally draws opposition from interested parties, especially when regulators believe insider trading threatens traditional information security. Polymarket then needs to choose between its own safety and the advantages brought by insider trading.

From the results, the introduction of enhanced market integrity rules has already shown Polymarket's stance, but the cost is a potential loss of user trust in the platform.

Banning user addresses is itself a sensitive issue for a decentralized platform. Once abused or leading to false-positive cases, it will trigger user resentment and concerns about fund security. Allowing people from around the world to participate in prediction markets with freedom to deposit and withdraw funds has always been a core competitive advantage of Polymarket. However, when Polymarket grants itself the power to ban accounts of suspected users, not only will insiders dare not trade on Polymarket, but even regular profitable users will worry the platform might use this as an excuse to prevent withdrawals. Once the door to banning accounts is opened, it may never be closed again.

In summary, a fierce crackdown on insider trading might secure Polymarket's safety from a regulatory perspective, but it will inevitably weaken Polymarket's foresight and accuracy in predicting event outcomes. At the same time, it will add another layer of concern for users about their fund security. Ultimately, a matured Polymarket will become an ordinary adult.