Brian Armstrong’s last-minute crypto mention turned a $4,000 prediction market into a joke. With just a few words, the Coinbase CEO triggered payouts on every bet involving “Bitcoin,” “Ethereum,” and “Web3.”
It was a sparse market, where the biggest winner netted only $111, as reported by Polymarket Analytics.
However, if Armstrong’s unexpected comments illustrated the absurdity of prediction markets, the New York City mayoral market, boasting $22 million in open interest, demonstrates their seriousness. Shifting the odds there by just 10 percentage points would require approximately $1 million in concentrated buying power.
This is due to Polymarket’s open interest indicating real funds in a liquidity pool, rather than merely the total of theoretical bets waiting to be settled. Each trade interacts with an automated pricing curve supported by collateral, leading to gradual shifts in odds rather than direct matches between traders.
The largest positions reveal the depth of that pool: whales like “dubdubdub2” and “asfgh” each possess over $2 million supporting Zohran Mamdani, according to Polymarket Analytics, while many major “No” traders are already facing significant losses and have limited capacity to add funds.
Consequently, any fresh bet placed “out of the money,” such as buying Andrew Cuomo at long odds or selling Mamdani near 95%, gets quickly absorbed by the market maker’s curve, which modifies prices based on supply and demand.
To shift the odds by 10 percentage points, a trader must push through millions of dollars in opposing orders, approximately $1 million in concentrated buying or selling, before the curve begins to shift meaningfully. The scale and structure of the market render minor attempts at manipulation nearly instantly neutralized by existing capital.
Recent polling aligns with the market’s perspective. A Fox News poll indicates Mamdani leading Cuomo by 16 points, while an Emerson College poll shows his lead at 25, suggesting that his 95% odds reflect voter sentiment rather than manipulation.
There may have been a confusion that polls capture what voters claim they will do, whereas prediction markets assess how confident traders are that those voters will actually follow through, meaning a candidate polling at 50% may not necessarily have a 50% chance of winning.
Ackman’s critique overlooked what traders already recognized: if Mamdani’s 95% odds were genuinely inflated, anyone could have capitalized on the mispricing.
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As CSPTrading.eth expressed, placing a bet on Mamdani is currently seen as a guaranteed 5% return in 10 days.
