[ad_1]
The Wall Street Journal have an interesting article (published before the attacks of Iran) something that PB had discussed previously
America’s adversaries are always searching for an edge—advance warning of a military strike, a window into classified decision-making, a tool to sow panic in financial markets. They may have found all three in the same place: prediction markets.
Israeli authorities this month indicted a reservist and a civilian with charges related to using classified intelligence to place bets on Polymarket, a leading prediction market. The suspects allegedly had advance knowledge of Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iran, with one account collecting more than $150,000 in winnings.
An anonymous trader in January turned roughly $34,000 into more than $400,000 by betting on the removal of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro hours before the U.S. raid to capture him.
Prediction markets allow participants to bet on the outcome of future events, with prices shifting to reflect probability. These markets often excel at aggregating dispersed information, sometimes outperforming polls and expert forecasts of elections, economic indicators and geopolitical developments. Their predictive power stems from a basic financial incentive: Traders risk their own capital. Some platforms use U.S. dollars, while others rely on blockchain infrastructure and stablecoins—enabling trade that is fast, global and pseudonymous.
The same structural features that make these markets efficient prediction tools also make them vulnerable to abuse and manipulation—and to the transmission of sensitive signals to foreign adversaries.
A paper published last year in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin suggests that prediction-market data—including sudden or unexpected changes in trading behavior—can serve as a valuable source of information for intelligence agencies. Joseph Grundfest, a former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, recently warned that signals from prediction market bets “can put your own military at greater risk.”
Given the general kleptomania around the Trump presidency I wouldn’t be surprised they are inadvertently tipping off their enemies.
TSE
[ad_2]
Source link