Polymarket reforms Bitcoin contracts and Binance trading spikes immediately drop
Summary
Polymarket changed its five-minute crypto markets in August from single-price snapshots to 60-second Chainlink TWAP benchmarks. A newer study of 82,752 Bitcoin settlement boundaries found no systematic shift of Binance trading into earlier periods and no recurrence of the near-strike reversal pattern observed under the old rule during the first three weeks after the change. The finding suggests the reform reduced that measured behavior, but does not establish that all manipulation has stopped or quantify current trader profits. Assessing profitability under the averaged rule would require accounting for both prediction-market outcomes and the costs of any trades used to affect Bitcoin’s reference price.
