- A trader using Polymarket made about $437,000 after placing a $32,000 bet that Nicolás Maduro would be removed from power by January 31.
- The account was created in December and kept placing wagers as late as 3am UTC on January 3, the day U.S. forces carried out the operation.
- Delta Force seized Maduro in Caracas; he was moved to the USS Iwo Jima and flown to New York to face charges, according to Reuters.
- An investigation says Venezuela may hold roughly $60 billion in Bitcoin, and the country’s opposition has praised BTC as a resistance tool.
- The timing of large bets has raised insider trading concerns and prompted talk of legislation to bar officials from trading on prediction markets.
A Polymarket trader won about $437,000 after placing a $32,000 wager that Nicolás Maduro would be removed from power by January 31. The account, which was created in December, placed the specific market bet that Maduro would be removed by that date. Polymarket is a prediction market (a platform where users bet on future events).
The account first placed the wager as early as December 31 and continued to make bets up until 3am UTC on Saturday, January 3, the day of the U.S. operation, according to the account’s activity page (view account).
Delta Force seized Maduro from a Caracas safehouse during a large-scale strike that reportedly took months of planning (reportedly). Maduro was moved to the USS Iwo Jima before being flown to New York, where he will be charged with drug trafficking and narco-terrorism.
An investigation by Whale Hunting says the regime may hold about $60 billion in bitcoin (revealed). Opposition leader María Corina Machado previously praised BTC in 2024 as a “vital means of resistance.”
The timing of the large Polymarket bets has renewed concerns about insider trading in prediction markets. The account also placed wagers on whether Donald Trump would invoke war powers against Venezuela and whether U.S. forces would enter or invade the country (placed). Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman claimed that Representative Ritchie Torres will introduce a bill to bar officials from engaging with “prediction market contracts when they either possess material nonpublic information relevant to the transaction or could reasonably obtain such information through their official duties.” “before and after” is how Mr. Trump said oil executives were informed of the operation, according to reporting that he revealed they were tipped off.
Major U.S. outlets reportedly learned of the raid in advance but held back reporting to avoid endangering troops (learned). The U.S. had also reportedly encouraged oil executives to return to Venezuela and invest, and Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela until a “proper and judicious transition” takes place. Trump has since repeated other territorial threats and has Colombia-sounds-good-him-2026-01-05/”>threatened Colombia.
The raid also appears to have influenced other markets: another Polymarket user wagered more than $30,000 on whether China would invade Taiwan by year-end (spurred).
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