Zelensky and the €200 million bet that set Polymarket ablaze

On June 25, during a meeting with NATO leaders, all eyes were on Volodymyr Zelensky, and not just because of his meeting with Donald Trump about the future of US aid to Ukraine. A handful of people online followed the Ukrainian president's arrival, keeping an eye on one thing in particular: his attire.

For several weeks, in fact, on Polymarket, a platform where people bet on future events with cryptocurrencies, many had begun to bet on a rather unpolitical question: would Zelensky be wearing a suit by July 2025? In those weeks, the market tied to this possibility, consisting of all the bets placed on this single point, had exceeded $200 million in total.

Then Zelenksy arrived, and indeed, he was elegantly dressed, at least by the standards of the Ukrainian president, who, since the Russian invasion, has chosen to wear military gear as a form of solidarity with the armed forces and his people. His look has long unnerved right-wing populists, as in the incident a few months ago, when Zelenksy was verbally attacked by Trump and his deputy, J.D. Vance, at the White House, precisely because he showed up in military gear.

This time, however, things were different: Zelensky was wearing an all-black suit, without a tie, not the traditional military green . In short, the bet seemed over: those who had bet on "Yes" had won, the others hadn't. But things aren't always that simple, and soon some users began to dispute the outcome: even though the media headlined "Zelensky wears a suit," it was clear he wasn't exactly dressed for a formal occasion. Black jacket over a black shirt, no tie. In short, not exactly a "suit."

We realize how secondary this topic is compared to everything else going on in the world these days, but the Polymarket debacle over Zelenksy's supposed elegance is a very dense story, a deep core sample of our world, so it's worth telling.

Because Polymarket isn't just a betting site: it also has a system of rules designed to prevent abuse and prevent accidents and financial losses in unclear and confusing situations . Before the market associated with a prediction is closed, for example, users have two hours to file a dispute and request a review of the outcome of a specific bet, paying a $750 deposit. If this happens, the decision is passed to The Oracle, a decentralized platform independent of Polymarket, called Universal Market Access (UMA).

UMA is responsible for resolving similar disputes through a vote in which holders of a specific token, or token, minted by the platform itself can participate. As is often the case in the cryptocurrency industry, however, these decentralized systems are decentralized in name only: they are often heavily influenced by users who hold large amounts of tokens and are therefore more influential than others. These users are also called whales.

Well, 95% of UMA tokens are in the hands of the aforementioned whales. Who, in this case, decided that no, Zelensky's suit wasn't really a suit , and therefore those who had bet on "Yes" hadn't won.

All hell broke loose. Many users on X, Reddit, and Discord have complained, accusing Polymarket and UMA of manipulating the outcome, and are now organizing to sue the platform and obtain a different outcome.

More than an anomaly, however, the story is part of a broader trend. So-called prediction markets have grown significantly in recent years, thanks in part to the combination of blockchain, speculative financial instruments, and a digital culture increasingly obsessed with risk and reward.

It's a culture, that of wild betting, whose most obvious manifestations are in football and sports in general: there are ten horses and you try to bet on the winner. The growing importance of cryptocurrencies, now adopted by financial institutions of the ancien régime, has taught us that sudden and absurd profits based on a single bet can make all the difference. And there are those who chase that thrill in everything: finance, politics, football, who will win Sanremo, what that politician will wear.

The story also demonstrates how the decentralization promised by the crypto world isn't synonymous with protection and "transparency." Social media and their mechanisms take care of the rest, making it virtually impossible to find a single, universal version of events. This no longer happens: not in politics, as we've known for some time, nor—and this is new—when it comes to understanding how someone is dressed.

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