The public sale results of Solomon were manipulated, and Polymarket predicts a Crisis of Confidence in encryption.

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Original | Odaily Planet Daily Golem

Translated for free…

Although stablecoins have frequently faced crises recently, the market's enthusiasm for stablecoin protocols remains undiminished. On November 19, the stablecoin protocol Solomon Labs on Solana announced the conclusion of its 5-day public fundraising, having raised over $102 million from 6,604 investors through MetaDao, making it the second highest fundraising project for MetaDao, second only to UmbraPrivacy.

The overall market is sluggish, and it is indeed worth congratulating that some projects can obtain substantial financing in the public market. However, the success of Solomon Labs has left some players on Polymarket unable to smile.

This is because there is a prediction on Polymarket called “Total commitments for the Solomon public sale on MetaDAO,” where players can bet on the probability of “how much the final fundraising for Solomon will not exceed.”

On the afternoon of November 18, less than 12 hours before the fundraising ended, Solomon had only raised 7.25 million dollars. Therefore, some players were certain that it would be impossible to raise more than 40 million dollars in the remaining time, so they rushed to buy “no” on Polymarket. There were even cautious players who bought “no” on the proposition that “Solomon would raise over 100 million dollars”; the probability of this outcome remained around 97% three hours before the fundraising ended.

But in the last one or two hours before the fundraising ended, a large amount of funds suddenly flowed into the Solomon public offering, raising the fundraising amount to 100 million dollars. The probability of “Solomon raising over 100 million dollars” on Polymarket also instantly changed from 1.6% to 99%, and the speed and timing were so clever that many Polymarket players didn't have time to react and sell, ultimately losing 100% of their principal while trying to gain a 1% “investment return.”

The probability of “Solomon raising over 100 million dollars” surged at the last moment.

Afterwards, Solomon's official statement claimed that there were no internal personnel involved in the public offering, nor were there any behind-the-scenes trades. However, this explanation seems somewhat weak, as the community has already identified a Polymarket trader who bought 'yes' on the low probability outcome of Solomon's fundraising in advance, earning over $560,000 from it.

Insider trading by project parties or manipulation by big players?

This trader is named Kimball Davies, who joined Polymarket in September 2024. Its slogan is “metadao, prediction markets,” which may represent its specialization in playing prediction events related to metadao.

However, this trader has only bet on two events since joining: one is buying 10 dollars on September 25, 2024, “the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by 50 basis points after November 20204,” and the other is a cumulative investment of 65703.58 dollars in the Solomon public offering event.

Insider trading by the project party?

Starting from November 17, KimballDavies began to buy “yes” in batches for “Solomon raising over 40 million dollars,” and in the following two days, also bought “yes” for raising over 60 million dollars, 80 million dollars, and 100 million dollars.

It can be seen that this trader started planning actions for November 19 from November 17, ultimately earning $567,554, with a profit increase of nearly 10 times… Therefore, we reasonably suspect that KimballDavies has insider information.

What is more worth pondering is, whose account is this? The general speculation in the community is that this account belongs to the project party, which inserted tens of millions of dollars at the end just to earn over 500,000 dollars on Polymarket?

Although there is such a possibility, it seems logically untenable upon further reflection. First, is it a bit too “insignificant” for a public fundraising project to issue tokens with over 500,000 dollars, as putting in more than 500,000 into tens of millions seems too small in scale? Second, if such an event were to occur, the first party to be suspected would be the project team. Damaging the project's reputation for just 500,000 dollars would affect community trust and could even have adverse effects on future listings on exchanges. It doesn't make sense to think that way.

Of course, there is also the possibility that internal team members place bets privately. The project team may have had a Plan B in advance, that is, in the case where public fundraising is not much, they could inject a large amount of their own funds, which would not only allow them to further control the token chips but also conduct a wave of marketing. Thus, the “intern” who knew about this plan secretly placed bets on all low-probability events on Polymarket.

Large holders are more likely to manipulate.

If we exclude the possibility of insider trading by the project party, then the last-minute influx of a large amount of funds into the Solomon public offering can only be attributed to manipulation by large investors, or at least by the “little brothers” who are close to the large investors and had advance knowledge of the information.

Perhaps these whales had the possibility of participating in the Solomon public offering earlier, but they noticed the predictions about the Solomon public offering funds on Polymarket. Therefore, out of a desire to make money or for “fun,” they decided to teach the Polymarket players a harsh lesson, letting the small investors know that having money can manipulate the results of prediction markets.

This is not the first time that big players have manipulated event outcomes on Polymarket. In July 2025, during a prediction about whether Ukrainian President Zelensky would wear a suit before July, even though mainstream media reported that Zelensky wore a suit at an event, some UMA whales chose “did not wear” in the final outcome determination vote, and ultimately, the traders who bet on “did not wear” emerged victorious. (Related reading: Polymarket embroiled in truth controversy again: What Zelensky wears will determine the fate of $140 million)

Polymarket does not predict the truth of cryptocurrency.

Although there have been cases of manipulation by large players in the past prediction markets, this time the fundraising amount prediction by Solomon is the first incident in the crypto market that involves significant insider doubts. This event is a signal that as more and more crypto players join Polymarket and the capital capacity increases, this place has become the best land for cutting leeks in the crypto market due to information asymmetry.

For example, betting on when a certain project will have its TGE or the FDV at the time of TGE presents an asymmetrical advantage, as the project team and VC individuals already know the outcome of these events and can even easily alter them. The more funds in the prediction pool, the stronger the incentive for them to act maliciously.

In these events, Polymarket does not predict the truth, but only reflects human greed. For us ordinary users, this event also demonstrates the risks of endgame strategies once again. What seems to be a reliable investment scheme with a probability as high as 99% may actually be a trap meticulously woven by others, waiting for you to fall into their snare. (Related reading: 95% win rate, still losing money: I've stepped into the endgame “investment” trap of prediction markets for you)

In traditional financial markets, insider trading is subject to strict legal penalties once discovered; in the crypto market, money laundering, insider trading, market manipulation, and other such activities are gradually receiving regulatory intervention; however, in the increasingly growing field of prediction markets, there are still few laws and regulations to regulate these malicious behaviors. Today, even if someone steps forward to claim that he manipulated the results of the Solomon public offering, aside from despising his shady operations, what can we do to him?

But I believe that in the future, countries will regulate the behavior of prediction markets more strictly, and only then will Polymarket be able to predict the truth beyond public events.