Polymarket and Maduro
Insider trading comes to prediction markets?
This week, we look into:
How one crypto trader made money off Nicolás Maduro’s capture
Why PwC and Morgan Stanley are late to the crypto party
Whether Ethereum will take off in 2026
[Insider out?]
A Polymarket user won over $400K predicting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be out of power by January 31. Congressman Ritchie Torres then introduced a bill that would bar federal employees from using insider information on prediction markets.
The Context 🧑💻:
Why’s there suspicion?
The anonymous user just opened an account in December, then placed over $30,000 on the market mere hours before Maduro was taken into US custody. While prediction market Kalshi prohibits insider trading, Polymarket does not.
What’s the argument for banning these types of trades?
Torres hasn’t fully made the case yet, instead saying the “Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026” has been in the works for a bit. He sees it as a starting point to make clear it’s illegal for public officials to profit off of inside info.
Is there an argument against?
Yes, actually: that prediction markets are different from casinos. The latter are all about individuals making money, with no societal benefit. The former are about accumulating better information so that others can make good decisions. The better the info, the more accurate the price—and therefore the predictions—become.
What’s next?
Regulation is most certainly coming, but considering there are other open questions around prediction markets—such as who gets to regulate sports markets—it’s anyone’s guess as to what the final form will take.
The Coverage 📰:
“Polymarket Trader’s $400K Bet on Maduro’s Ousting Sparks Insider Trading Controversy” (Decrypt)
“A well-timed Maduro bet on Polymarket paid out big. A planned bill would keep government insiders out.” (Business Insider)
“Rep. Torres set to introduce bill to restrict elected officials’ use of prediction markets following Maduro bet” (The Block)
PR Perspective 🔎:
Prediction markets are going mainstream, so the debate is no longer about whether these markets can exist, but about who can participate, under what rules, and with what accountability. The Maduro bet underscores the risks of leaving markets unchecked: manipulation could cause people to lose trust in the reliability of the information these markets are supposed to provide.
[Better late than never?]
Morgan Stanely applied with the SEC to issue Bitcoin and Solana exchange-traded funds. Meanwhile, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is saying it will “lean in” to crypto.
The Context 🧑💻:
What’s the big deal?
As a member of the “Big Four,” PwC is one of the largest accounting firms in the world, but until now it has shied away from taking on crypto clients or doing crypto consulting. Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, is one of the biggest investment banks on Wall Street.
Why the change?
PwC CEO Paul Griggs told the FT that the passage of the GENIUS Act and pro-crypto regulators in the US have changed the risk calculus. Morgan Stanley is joining an ETF pack that already includes BlackRock and Fidelity. Those two firms now have the two largest Bitcoin ETFs by assets under management. Presumably, Morgan Stanley doesn’t want to leave money on the table.
The Coverage 📰:
“Crypto Latecomer Morgan Stanley Files for Bitcoin, Solana ETFs” (Bloomberg)
“PwC ‘leans in’ to crypto as Donald Trump and lawmakers embrace sector” (Financial Times)
PR Perspective 🔎:
Bloomberg’s headline called Morgan Stanley a “latecomer” to crypto. This suggests, crypto adoption is quickly becoming table stakes — meaning the news will no longer be about “who” is getting into crypto but the “what,” the “how,” and why it took them so long.
[Is 2026 Ethereum’s year?]
Another year and Ethereum remains the second-biggest blockchain, but ETH remains well under $4,000. Will the network have a strong year?
What Media Said 🧑💻:
What are the arguments for?
More individuals and institutions than ever are using Ethereum. The blockchain just set a record for average daily transactions across one week. Meanwhile, big firms like JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock have been tokenising assets that settle to Ethereum.
What are the arguments against?
Creator Vitalik Buterin says now is the time “to build the world computer that serves as a central infrastructure piece of a more free and open internet.” The problem is that Ethereum’s decentralisation and disdain for entrenched authority means there’s no one to lead it to that future.
So, where might the price go this year?
There’s a big gulf between the network’s utility and the price of ETH. Ethereum’s dominance in DeFi and ability to attract tokenised assets means its fundamentals are solid. But its reliance on “layer-2 blockchains” to handle transactions means its economics are more complicated than Bitcoin’s. It may take a while for the coin price to catch up with the network’s dominance.
The Coverage 📰:
“Ethereum’s staking queues have cleared and that changes the ETH trade” (CoinDesk)
“Ethereum Network Usage Hits Record High—But Traders More Bullish on Gold” (Decrypt)
“Ethereum has long talked a big game. Now it’s time for the second biggest blockchain to deliver” (Fortune)
PR Perspective 🔎:
Bitcoin’s early-2026 rebound looks more like a liquidity bounce than a conviction move, with prices rising despite weak spot volumes and thin market depth. Ethereum, meanwhile, is quietly attracting capital. For now, Bitcoin feels late-cycle and macro-dependent, while Ethereum is being positioned as longer-term infrastructure that still needs to prove it can translate fundamentals into sustained price strength.
[Tweet of The Week]
Credit: @BitcoinMagazine
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The usual disclaimer: This newsletter collates the main themes and headlines of the week in DeFi/crypto/metaverse/Web3/NFT land and tries to provide unbiased context. It’s aimed at anyone who wants to keep an eye on the space. It’s put together by a team at YAP and doesn’t contain any promotion of our clients (if one is mentioned, we’ll flag that).
The team: Founder Samantha Yap and consulting editor Jeff Benson, Andrew Wickerson, Nathalie Larrea, Meghna Dembla, Samvidha Sharma, William Knight, Taylor Handler, Abby Rose Notarnicola, and TJ Thomas. Your feedback is, as always, welcome. Ping us at thecontext@yapglobal.com. Old newsletters can be found here.
This newsletter is prepared by YAP Global, an international PR Consultancy focusing on helping cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and brands through impactful storytelling. Find out more about us here.