Foreign media: Polymarket is filled with false "wash trading," with trading volume inconsistent with on-chain data

ChainCatcher news, according to Fortune magazine, analysts from blockchain companies Chaos Labs and Inca Digital have found rampant wash trading on Polymarket. They discovered signs of fake trading activity on Polymarket, where buying and selling often occurs simultaneously and repeatedly to create the illusion of trading volume and activity. Chaos Labs found that fake trades account for about one-third of the trading volume in the U.S. presidential election market on Polymarket, while Inca Digital found that a significant portion of the market's trading volume may be attributed to potential fake trades.

Chaos Labs and Inca Digital found discrepancies between the reported presidential election prediction trading volume on the Polymarket website and on-chain data. Inca stated that the actual trading volume for the presidential election prediction market is about $1.75 billion, while Polymarket reported a figure of $2.7 billion. Chaos Labs attributed this to Polymarket conflating trading shares with dollars.