The original post: /r/cryptocurrency by /u/GabeSter on 2025-01-21 21:46:28.
Polymarket Drama is endlessly entertaining and in the next installment of Polymarket Drama and Scam accusations we’re going to be covering a market where there was no scam… Well except by the users themselves trying to scam other users into believing a market with an impossible outcomes was possible. This is in spite of Polymarket, Uma, and other users warning them that they were being scammed.
The market in question is: “TikTok banned in the US before May 2025?”
If you weren’t living under a rock over the weekend. You’d know that TikTok shut down in the morning on Saturday due to a ban going into effect and turned on later in that day after Trump assured them they would face zero consequences for operating while banned.
Part 1: The It’s not Actually Banned Scam
Just after TikTok restarted service - while the market was going through a dispute a whole bunch of people jumped on the market and said “since you can use TikTok it must not be banned, after all how can you use an app that is banned.”
- Ignoring the fact that TikTok was already shut down earlier in the day due to the ban.
- Ignoring the fact that usability =/= legality.
The people arguing this ended up getting enough people to buy into that narrative that they were able to push the market from 99% for yes to 94% yes. (after which of course the initial scammers arguing this logic - sold their positions for a 3x profit and disappeared)
It got so bad that Polymarket after not wanting to issue a clarification on the market decided to issue a clarification to prevent more people from getting scammed.
Part 2: The UMA will save us Scam
After the clarification was issued and the markets reset it became undeniable that this market would go towards yes. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you’d know that when Polymarket tells UMA what to do that’s what going to happen. In this instance the clarification is in line with an undeniable reality and there wasn’t really anything to argue.
Yet the users who bought no quickly pivoted to “It’s not over UMA can still side with us”. But that in fact did not happen with a grand total 0% of UMA voters agreeing with the narrative.
Part 3: The Obscure Rule Scam.
Well after it became clear to No voters that UMA wasn’t going to side with them they quickly pivoted to an obscure line in the rule claiming if Trump buys TikTok then this market should go to yes, even if the ban happened before then.
This was obviously nonsense that didn’t last long as any ban and therefore a yes resolution would precede an outcome that was caused by a non existent sale. Still no bettors couldn’t help but look for any reason to support their bad gambling decision.
Part 4: The Polymarket will save us Scam.
Somehow after all of this the bettors are now saying that Polymarket will save them and emergency resolve the market to give them their money back. No seriously even after Polymarket told them this market is yes, they’re now claiming that Polymarket will override UMA (who was the first to tell them that it was yes) and change the market to no.
Part 5: The whales
Obviously with these people throwing away literally millions of dollars for an outcome with a zero percent chance of happening. Whales will take notice and that’s exactly what happened.
The top Whale who spent ~$18M buying up yes shares at $.99 is going to make $200k on a Risk free market over a two day period because these no buyers tricked themselves into believing an impossible outcome was actually possible…
If you want to read 20k comments of the most insane brainrot imaginable you can check the comments on that market. They are still going off about how no is right and continuing to throw money into the fire to “beat the whales”.
And those are just in the last thirty comments… They go like that nonstop for close to 15k comments while other more experienced users try and warn them that they’re being scammed.
…
The entire market is a demonstration of an echo chamber gone wrong. Where users just scream what they want to hear at each other and ignore anyone else who tries to warn them otherwise.
Users comment they’re right over and over again -> more and more more users join -> the first users who started it quietly sell their positions and leave -> users listening to their echos invest millions of dollars into a lost market -> users lose their money and claim they were scammed.