Polymarket accused of changing settlement rules to void winning bet on Strategy Bitcoin sale

Polymarket is facing manipulation allegations after a trader claimed the platform unfairly changed settlement rules to cancel a winning bet on whether Strategy had sold Bitcoin during a specified timeframe.

I was just scammed for $500K by Polymarket.

I am "willo2", the top holder of YES on "MicroStrategy sells Bitcoin by May 31st".

Here's what happened: pic.twitter.com/4n81IdvLXI

— willo2 (@willo2_Poly) June 2, 2026

The trader, posting under the handle willo2_Poly (willo2) on X, said he placed his first YES bets on the proposition that Strategy would sell Bitcoin before May 31 after the firm transferred $30 million in Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime.

Source: Arkham Intel

Reviewing the wallet history and previous transfers, willo2 concluded that the move was highly unusual and unlike anything Strategy had done before, and believed that the transfer strongly suggested an impending sale.

The crypto bettor added that he and others priced the contract based on written market rules, which he said indicated the outcome would resolve based on whether a sale occurred.

The exact wording of the rules:

"This market will resolve to "Yes" if MicroStrategy sells any of its Bitcoin by 11:59 PM ET on the date specified in the title. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No"… pic.twitter.com/xT3ptwKFQD

— willo2 (@willo2_Poly) June 2, 2026

On June 1, Strategy disclosed that it had sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31. Following the disclosure, the corresponding Polymarket contract rallied sharply as traders reassessed the likelihood of a YES outcome.

Willo2 viewed the filing as definitive proof that the market’s conditions had been met, yet the market remained open and unresolved post-disclosure.

The trader saw the gap between the contract price and what he considered a certain outcome as a mispricing too large to ignore. He reviewed the rules again, reread the 8K, and concluded that Strategy had unambiguously met the criteria. He then placed his largest position on the market.

“The market didn’t resolve. I was a bit uneasy, but I thought about it. As a trader, I had a duty to place maximum size on mispriced bets. I reread the rules. SALE before May 31st. Reread the 8K. Microstrategy SOLD Bitcoin. The market was open and trading. So I jammed,” he wrote.

After the filing became public, Polymarket issued additional clarification regarding how the market would be resolved.

The platform stated that no information from Strategy itself, on-chain data, or credible reporting had confirmed the sale within the market’s timeframe. Because confirmation only arrived after May 31, Polymarket argued that the market should not be resolved based on that June 1 disclosure.

That led to a different resolution, and Willo2’s bet was ultimately settled against him.

The trader argued that the rule being used to resolve the market was not clearly included in the original contract specifications, saying Polymarket effectively shifted the criteria from whether the underlying event occurred to when it was publicly confirmed.

He also alleged that Polymarket delayed resolution until the regulatory filing, which he said was unfair to traders who had already taken positions based on the filing.

I supported Polymarket for years because I believed they represented crypto values.

In fact, their platform is simply another bucketshop where if you bet too much, you're going to get cleaned.

It's disgraceful that your employees would scam for such low amounts @shayne_coplan pic.twitter.com/1Aw7g69Yrv

— willo2 (@willo2_Poly) June 2, 2026

Polymarket has not issued a public response to the claims. In the meantime, Willo2’s thread has quickly spread across the crypto community.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.