Polymarket says No for May, Yes for June after Strategy's recent bitcoin sale

UMA voters ruled that Strategy's June 1 disclosure counted for the June contract, even though the company said it sold bitcoin during the final week of May.

What to know:

• Polymarket resolved its disputed bitcoin-sale prediction markets by ruling the May 31 contract No and the June 30 contract Yes, following a vote by UMA token holders.
• The dispute centered on whether Strategy’s sale of 32 bitcoin between May 26 and May 31 should count toward the May deadline, with UMA voters deciding that only the June 1 public disclosure date mattered.
• A small group of large UMA holders, including wallets linked to Risk Labs and prominent ecosystem participants, overwhelmingly swung the vote toward No, causing May bettors to lose despite the sale occurring in late May.

Strategy’s recent bitcoin sale, the first in more than three years, sparked a major dispute on Polymarket, with the dispute settlement body led by UMA token holders ultimately ruling against bettors who wagered the sale would occur by May 31.

The controversy began after Strategy disclosed in a June 1 filing that it had sold 32 bitcoin between May 26 and May 31. Traders who bought Yes on the May market argued the company had clearly sold bitcoin before the deadline. Others countered that the transaction was not publicly disclosed until June 1 and therefore should not count toward a May 31 cutoff.

UMA token holders, who serve as the dispute-resolution layer for Polymarket's oracle system, sided decisively with the latter view.

The resolution means bettors who wagered that Strategy would sell bitcoin by May 31 lost despite the company later disclosing the sale occurred during the final week of May. The June contract, meanwhile, resolved Yes because the transaction became public during June.

The result was driven by a handful of large token holders, which undercuts the core promise of decentralized finance where governance is democratized and not led by few whales.

The biggest vote came from borntoolate.eth, which cast 3.11 million voting weight for No. Other major No votes included UMA contributor Kevin Chan with 1.53 million voting weight and several wallets casting more than 1 million each. Together, the four largest No voters controlled nearly 7 million voting weight, more than 25 times the entire Yes side.

Several wallets identified as affiliated with Risk Labs, the company behind UMA, also voted No, alongside other prominent UMA ecosystem participants.

Not everyone is pleased with the resolution. Galaxy Research, which had significant exposure to the May contract, pushed back sharply on X. The firm stressed that Strategy explicitly sold the 32 Bitcoin between May 26 and May 31, and that the market’s resolution criteria should focus on when the sale occurred — not when it was publicly announced on June 1.

"Strategy's SEC-filed Form 8k explicitly stated that Strategy sold between May 26–31. A plain reading of the resolution criteria would suggest that the market should have resolved to YES, hence the controversy," the firm said.

More For You

Apyx’s apxUSD stablecoin briefly slipped to 93 cents Wednesday.

What to know:

• Apyx’s apxUSD slipped to 93 cents during bitcoin’s drop below $63,000.
• Apyx says volatility is expected and cushioned by overcollateralization, dividend mechanisms, and limited liquidation risk in Morpho markets.

Goldman Sachs teams with Apex, Archax for tokenized real estate fund

3 minutes ago

Apyx's STRC collateralized stablecoin suffers a brief depeg. Protocol says its a feature, not bug

1 hour ago

BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP ETFs bleed $4.4 billion over 13 sessions, only HYPE in green

2 hours ago

Bitcoin briefly drops below $62,000 as $1.5 billion in crypto longs get wiped out

5 hours ago

Live Markets: Bitcoin bounces to $64,000 in classic oversold rebound

5 hours ago

Bitcoin tanks below $63,000 for the first time since February as price selloff deepens

6 hours ago

Bitcoin isn't crashing because of Saylor, it's losing the momentum trade

13 hours ago

Bitmine's Ethereum bet nears $9 billion loss as ether falls below $1,800

11 hours ago

New DeFi entrant widens field of crypto political campaign funds as elections loom

13 hours ago

Rare physical bitcoin worth $1.78 million gets cashed in after 12 years

17 hours ago

Payment giants Stripe, Visa, Mastercard said to be among backers of soon-to-debut stablecoin platform

20 hours ago

Clarity Act survival depends on the U.S. Senate getting a lot of non-crypto work done

19 hours ago