You know, it’s interesting to watch how Polymarket suddenly became the center of everyone’s attention. While the mainstream media were still guessing about the results of the US elections, this decentralized prediction platform had already “known” the answer in advance. Creator Shane Copley, who is only 26, seems to have created something truly unusual for Web3.

But doubts start to creep in. First, the story about political bias surfaced. Copley was spotted at the Republican National Convention next to Trump’s son, and then he took photos with a Democratic vice-presidential candidate. The platform’s investor, Peter Thiel, is a well-known Trump supporter. Copley himself explained that Polymarket maintains a neutral stance, but honestly, it looks like a publicity push. Bloomberg wrote that the platform handed out branded baseball caps at the Republican convention and hired people for a thousand dollars as live billboards. This is no longer just participation in political life—this is marketing.

Then came the story about manipulation. The Wall Street Journal said that Trump’s leading position on Polymarket could have been “created by momentum” from just four accounts. It turned out to be a French trader named Theo, who was simply making money. The platform conducted an investigation and said there was no manipulation. Maybe so, but the doubts remain.

An even more curious point is the trading volume. Chaos Labs found that about a third of the volume in the presidential predictions could be fake trades. And Inca Digital discovered that the real trading volume was around $1.75 billion, while Polymarket reported $2.7 billion. A difference of one billion dollars isn’t a small thing. In Web3, fake trading is everyday life—especially if token airdrops are expected. And yes, there were rumors that Polymarket is considering issuing a token worth more than $50 million.

And then there was the funny situation with regulation. In 2022, the CFTC fined the platform $1.4 million for operating without a license in the US, and it agreed to block access for US users. But Bloomberg found that the platform’s owner spent almost $270,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads for Americans. Polymarket’s senior development director tried to secure sponsorship deals with American influencers. A platform representative said it wasn’t meant to stimulate trading, but it looks like “compliance in words, and in practice—total chaos.”

Overall, Polymarket has definitely taken Web3 to a new level of attention. Maybe it really will become an “alternative source of information,” as Copley says. But now the platform needs to understand that the elections are over. Without a hot topic, how will they keep growing? A token could help, but the main thing is not to forget the core mission: to provide people with accurate predictions, not fake volumes and political games.