Polymarket Maduro Bet: Bubblemaps Debunks WLFI Insider Claims

The controversy centers on a trader who earned roughly $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket by correctly betting on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The substantial profit quickly drew scrutiny from the crypto community. On-chain analyst Andrew 10 GWEI conducted an investigation that went viral, suggesting the trader could be linked to Steven Charles Witkoff, the co-founder of World Liberty Financial (WLFI).

Andrew’s analysis was based on tracing funding patterns through the exchange Coinbase. He identified two largely inactive wallets that funded the Polymarket betting account shortly before the wagers were placed. Each wallet received funds from Coinbase and sent them directly to the platform. One specific wallet received about 252 SOL from Coinbase, while a similar amount of SOL had been deposited into Coinbase from another address roughly a day earlier. Andrew also noted that the wallets had ENS and SNS names resembling “Steven Charles.” Based on this transaction flow, timing, and naming conventions, he described it as a “99% match” and raised the possibility of insider access.

Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps has forcefully pushed back against these claims, labeling the logic behind the alleged connection as flawed. The firm stated that declaring a single address pattern a “99% accurate” match is statistically misleading. Bubblemaps argued that when filtered by comparable amounts and broad timing windows, thousands of wallets could display similar transactional behavior, making the identified pattern far from unique.

A core part of Bubblemaps’ critique focused on the analysis of exchange timing. The firm dismissed the significance of the one-day gap between the SOL deposit into Coinbase and the subsequent withdrawal, arguing such delays are common in centralized exchange operations and do not inherently indicate coordination or shared ownership between the depositing and withdrawing parties. Bubblemaps further explained that exchange funding can originate from various sources—including bank transfers, bundled transactions, or funds deposited long before the observed activity—none of which were accounted for in the viral analysis.

Perhaps the most significant methodological flaw highlighted by Bubblemaps was the narrow focus on SOL inflows. The firm pointed out that exchange deposits can be made in multiple assets, such as USDC or ETH. When these other assets and their equivalent dollar values are included in the analysis, multiple additional transactional matches emerge within the same one-day timeframe, further diluting the uniqueness of the pattern cited as evidence.

This public dispute between an on-chain sleuth and an established analytics firm underscores the challenges and potential pitfalls of interpreting public blockchain data. Bubblemaps concluded its rebuttal with a cautionary note: “Timing analysis is powerful, but when used poorly it can lead to almost any conclusion. Drama is more tempting than truth. Watch out.” This statement serves as a warning to the crypto community about the risks of drawing definitive, accusatory conclusions from incomplete datasets.

The incident also touches on the sensitive topic of insider trading within decentralized prediction markets like Polymarket. While the platform’s outcomes are tied to real-world events—in this case, political developments in Venezuela—proving malfeasance requires robust, multi-faceted evidence. The debate between Andrew 10 GWEI and Bubblemaps demonstrates how easily circumstantial on-chain data can be woven into a compelling narrative, and how that narrative can quickly unravel under rigorous statistical scrutiny. It highlights the need for comprehensive analysis that considers all transactional assets and acknowledges the normal operational vagaries of centralized exchanges like Coinbase.