Vitalik Buterin defends Polymarket over betting options on the Israel-Hezbollah war

Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin defended Polymarket, a decentralized prediction platform, for availing bets on the Israel-Hezbollah war. According to Buterin, the Israel-Hezbollah war betting section can act like a news outlet for viewers, while traders see the section as a betting site. 

Buterin’s comment follows an X user’s comment about how it felt wrong for Polymarket to have a betting section on a war like a football game. The Ethereum co-founder still argued that many people used platforms like X and the Internet to spread false predictions on conflicts.

Several websites have been involved in similar bets, including Augur, which opened bets on the possibility of Trump’s assassination in July. The startups have also had a hand in putting out bets on the elections’ outcomes. Polymarket is one of the top [platforms with over $1 billion traded on the bet Trump vs. Harris.

Buterin says, ‘It is not about making money’

I support these existing. The point of polymarket is that from the perspective of traders it's a betting site, but from the perspective of viewers it's a news site. There's all kinds of people (incl elites) on twitter and the internet making harmful and inaccurate predictions…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 1, 2024

Vitalik argued that his support for Polymarket is not about making money from bad things happening but allowing speech to have consequences. The Ethereum co-founder suggested that baseless content sharing that triggers fear should be punishable. 

“….both unjustified fearmongering *and* unjustified complacency are punished), without relying on governmental or corporate censors.”

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder

The Chainlink Community Liaison Zach Rynes commented on the topic, asking whether Buterin’s perspective would change in the case of assassination prediction markets. Rynes speculated on the possibility of someone taking a real-life action to influence a specific outcome. The Chainlink Liaison also asked if there should be a limit to what people can bet on.

Buterin replied that, like him, many Polymarket advocates were against assassination prediction markets. The Ethereum co-founder confirmed that the dividing line would be if the markets incentivized individuals to do bad things.

Vitalik also explained that unfounded predictions that force people to make irrational decisions would cause resource waste and emotional strain. Ethereum’s co-founder reiterated the need for markets to provide actual information and probability on ongoing events. 

Other parties support Polymarket

Besides Vitalik Buterin, several other commenters on the topic sided with Polymarket. One commenter suggested that they saw value in the Polymarket Israel-Hezbollah betting section. The X user mentioned people’s growing distrust in news outlets, insisting that having the ‘true’ odds of the events was helpful.

The original X user who posted the story countered that neither Polymarket nor X was the absolute source of truth. The X user also insisted that the commenter’s argument would apply if the markets weren’t future-oriented. 

The user posted Polymarket’s reply to the story. Polymarket commented that prediction markets aimed to harness crowd wisdom and create unbiased predictions of important societal events. 

The platform commented that its decision came after deliberating with people affected by the Israel-Hezbollah war. Polymarket then decided that prediction markets could provide answers that affected parties sought. The platform also insisted that it was providing the service at a loss. Polymarket has reportedly removed the Hezbollah label since the discussion.