The UFO Market on Polymarket: A Carefully Designed Reverse Arbitrage?

Question

[Crypto World] Yesterday there was a pretty interesting market on Polymarket—“Will Trump publicly release UFO files in 2025?” The odds shot up from 5% to 71% in just half an hour. At first glance, it looked like some major news was about to break. After all, Trump did say during his campaign that he would “declassify everything,” and the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act does require the Pentagon to release some files.

But if you dig deeper, the truth might not be that simple.

The main force driving up the market was a trader named ster. He had been sweeping up “Yes” from the very start, and yesterday, when liquidity was low, he market bought enough to push the odds way up. If you check his trading history, you’ll see he’s all about the “buy low, pump, dump” strategy—not really the kind of person who’d have insider info.

Even stranger is what happened on the other side. In the 12 hours after the odds spiked, six accounts suddenly popped up, buying a total of over 20,000 shares of “No”—betting that Trump won’t declassify—at an average price of less than $0.20.

These six accounts have one thing in common: this is their only position on Polymarket. The timing was so precise, the prices so consistent, and the positions so large, it’s hard to believe it’s a coincidence.

One possibility is that this group used the routine update from the AARO website as a “smokescreen,” working with ster to push up the price of “Yes” so the price of “No” would crash to rock bottom, then built up their positions at low cost. They probably know that AARO’s kind of routine update doesn’t meet the strict standards needed for market resolution, so the market will most likely settle as “No” in the end.

If that’s the case, this is a classic case of asymmetric information arbitrage—using retail FOMO to create their own entry opportunity.

CommunityJanitor · Accepted Answer

It's the same old trick again: pump the price during low liquidity, then have six sockpuppets take turns dumping. Classic reverse arbitrage.

SlowLearnerWang · Answer

Same old trick again—pumping the price quietly during low-liquidity periods, then a bunch of sockpuppet accounts jump on the bandwagon... I told you, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

liquidation_surfer · Answer

Haha, this trick again? Pumping during low liquidity periods, then using opposite accounts to buy in and take over the positions. It's an old crypto game... Do they really think they can fool anyone?

PessimisticOracle · Answer

Same old trick, I've seen it way too many times. I can see right through this ster play with my eyes closed: pump it during low liquidity, then wait for retail investors to rush in, and the ghost accounts start dumping—classic reverse arbitrage move.