The post Crypto Bettors Still Have $6 Million Riding on Whether RFK Jr. Officially ‘Dropped Out’ appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

The twice-disputed outcome of a Polymarket contest involving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has proven controversial and remains unresolved. And some traders have leveraged the fracas online to stage long-shot bets around the independent presidential candidate’s suspended campaign. Before Kennedy spoke about the future of his White House bid in Arizona on Friday, a market on the blockchain-based prediction platform had garnered $300,000 in total bets. The contest looked to assess Kennedy’s odds of dropping out by Friday, penciling in a 90% chance. Three days later, the market has yet to be resolved, with $6.3 million in total wagers cast. As of this writing, a “final review” was set to conclude within the next seven hours, determining the fate of positions that were mostly taken up after Kennedy’s decision to put his campaign on pause. At one point Friday, Kennedy’s odds of dropping out Friday nosedived to a 6% chance, before edging back up to a near 100% chance after the initial confusion spread. Prediction platforms have skyrocketed in popularity this year, as a divisive U.S. presidential election has spurred record bets on Polymarket’s platform. At the same time, the increased popularity has shed a spotlight on how platforms reach a consensus after users cry foul. Polymarket leverages the UMA Protocol to resolve markets when users disagree with a market’s outcome. Effectively, holders of UMA tokens are tasked with voting on which outcome is true when a market is disputed, aided with arguments from UMA’s Discord server. The process has played out twice already, with UMA token holders finding that Kennedy did indeed drop out Friday. But as the contest neared its third and final review, some users focused on the fact that Kennedy said his name “will remain on the ballot in most states.” “RFK himself has said to vote…

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Filed under: News - @ August 26, 2024 10:19 pm