A $70K Winning Trade: How Ethereum's Founder Plays the Prediction Market
「My method is actually very simple,」 Vitalik Buterin said last week when asked about how he made $70,000 in a year, 「I would look for markets that have already entered a 'madness mode,' and then bet against it — these crazy things will not happen.」
When the world goes mad, rationality is the best arbitrage
At the end of January 2026, in an interview in Chiang Mai, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin publicly discussed his trading experience on the prediction market Polymarket: in 2025, he used about $440,000 in capital and made approximately $70,000 in profit.
Although this amount is inconsequential to Vitalik, whose net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, his mentioned trading strategy and understanding of Polymarket's settlement mechanism indicate that he is not just "playing around," but has built a very sophisticated trading logic after delving deep into the entire prediction market system.
To make it easier for the audience to understand, he even gave several specific examples: for instance, last year's highly controversial Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Trump, has repeatedly publicly stated that he is the most qualified person to receive the award.
After being widely reported by the media, Trump's probability of receiving the award once exceeded 15%, and many traders believed that in Trump's style, he would use various coercive means to force the Norwegian Nobel Committee to eventually compromise and award him.
Vitalik's assessment of this matter is very straightforward: this 15% does not reflect the true probability but reflects emotion. What I need to do is stand on the opposite side of emotion and use rationality to profit from that segment of overestimated probability difference.
Starting from "Trump will not receive the Nobel Prize," deduce Vitalik's Polymarket account
Based on the clues revealed by Vitalik in the interview and Polymarket's mechanism for traders' "track records," we can actually try to outline his account profile: $440,000 in capital, $70,000 in annual profit, making money by betting that Trump will not receive the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
After a set of filters, two accounts came to light: momom and terremoto.


In addition to matching the principal and profit, the transaction logic of both parties perfectly aligns with Vitalik's profit system for the "short sentiment": over 70% of the trades are betting that something will not happen, with no speculative price, sports sector-related trades.
Further on-chain fund tracing revealed that although the amount of terremoto's fund deposit matches $440,000, the money was split into dozens of small deposits of thousands of dollars, with no activity between multiple on-chain wallets other than fund transfers.
On the other hand, momom's on-chain deposits were several large transfers of over one hundred thousand dollars. Combining the fact that momom's account only made one "Yes" bet transaction, along with terremoto's transaction frequency resembling that of a full-time trader actively participating in prediction markets every day, we ultimately believe that momom better fits Vitalik's profile.
If momom is indeed Vitalik: what is his strategy?
Imagine this: Today is March 3, 2025. As a die-hard Trump supporter, you are convinced that he is different from past puppet presidents controlled by the deep government. Within a year of Trump taking office, he fulfilled various campaign promises (ICE cracking down on immigrants, imposing tariffs to "protect domestic companies," etc.).
You also vividly remember that he mentioned during his campaign that he would push for the disclosure of UFO and extraterrestrial-related documents.
Just yesterday, you saw a news report about US lawmakers pushing new legislation to establish a "UFO Task Force." There was a comment mentioning another related piece of news:
A former US Air Force and intelligence officer, David Grusch, disclosed that the US government ran a "decades-long UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program," recovering "non-human-origin" aircraft and "non-human biological remains."
Connecting these clues, you realized something incredible: Trump is highly likely to disclose alien files!
At this point, you see in the prediction markets that the probability of "Will the US announce the existence of aliens in 2025?" is only 10%. This means that Trump has nearly 11 months to disclose the relevant documents.
"This probability is severely underestimated!" After just examining news, comments, and even adding information you searched for, you came to this conclusion and subsequently placed a "Yes" bet.
This is a bet with a potential return of nearly tenfold, which you believe to be your most successful investment since the beginning of 2025. What you don't know is that the counterparty on the other side of the order book is none other than Vitalik.

This is exactly what this account did back in March last year: amidst a lot of market noise and overwhelming related media coverage, he bet at 10% odds that the U.S. would not announce the existence of aliens in the next ten months. This transaction ultimately brought him a 10% gain.
Interestingly, an identical bet is once again available, and he is once again betting that this event will not happen this year. Even as of the time of writing, his trade is still in the red. You can even piggyback on this trade at a cost lower than Vitalik's.

Conclusion
Just a month into 2026, all sorts of seemingly impossible things have repeatedly filled the headlines of major media outlets: the President of Venezuela, Maduro, was snatched from his country by the U.S. like a chick and flown back to the U.S., Trump went so far as to try to buy Greenland even alienating NATO allies, and nearly every U.S. political and business titan was mentioned in the Epstein files.
Undeniably, we are living in an era engulfed by uncertainty. In such a context, "it seems like anything could happen".
Prediction markets emerge to directly translate this illusion into probability: every breaking news, every tweet, every exaggerated media interpretation briefly inflates the price of a "Yes" on a certain outcome.
And many star traders like Vitalik capitalize on overestimated probabilities to bet that some extreme event will not occur. After optimizing such strategies through robust trading systems based on mathematics, statistics, etc., such a strategy has become one of the most stable investment methods in prediction markets today.
You may also like

Russia’s Largest Bitcoin Miner BitRiver Faces Bankruptcy Crisis – What Went Wrong?
Key Takeaways BitRiver, the largest Bitcoin mining operator in Russia, faces a bankruptcy crisis due to unresolved debts…

Polymarket Predicts Over 70% Chance Bitcoin Will Drop Below $65K
Key Takeaways Polymarket bettors forecast a 71% chance for Bitcoin to fall below $65,000 by 2026. Strong bearish…

BitMine Reports 4.285M ETH Holdings, Expands Staked Position With Massive Reward Outlook
Key Takeaways BitMine Immersion Technologies holds 4,285,125 ETH, which is approximately 3.55% of Ethereum’s total supply. The company…

US Liquidity Crisis Sparked $250B Crash, Not a ‘Broken’ Crypto Market: Analyst
Key Takeaways: A massive $250 billion crash shook the cryptocurrency markets, attributed largely to liquidity issues in the…

Vitalik Advocates for Anonymous Voting in Ethereum’s Governance — A Solution to Attacks?
Key Takeaways Vitalik Buterin proposes a two-layer governance framework utilizing anonymous voting to address collusion and capture attacks,…

South Korea Utilizes AI to Pursue Unfair Crypto Trading: Offenders Face Severe Penalties
Key Takeaways South Korea is intensifying its use of AI to crack down on unfair cryptocurrency trading practices.…

Average Bitcoin ETF Investor Turns Underwater After Major Outflows
Key Takeaways: U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs hold approximately $113 billion in assets, equivalent to around 1.28 million BTC.…

Japan’s Biggest Wealth Manager Adjusts Crypto Strategy After Q3 Setbacks
Key Takeaways Nomura Holdings, Japan’s leading wealth management firm, scales back its crypto involvement following significant third-quarter losses.…

CFTC Regulatory Shift Could Unlock New Opportunities for Coinbase Prediction Markets
Key Takeaways: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is focusing on clearer regulations for crypto-linked prediction markets,…

Hong Kong Set to Approve First Stablecoin Licenses in March — Who’s In?
Key Takeaways Hong Kong’s financial regulator, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), is on the verge of approving…

BitRiver Founder and CEO Igor Runets Detained Over Tax Evasion Charges
Key Takeaways: Russian authorities have detained Igor Runets, CEO of BitRiver, on allegations of tax evasion. Runets is…

Crypto Investment Products Struggle with $1.7B Outflows Amid Market Turmoil
Key Takeaways: The recent $1.7 billion outflow in the crypto investment sector represents a second consecutive week of…

Why Is Crypto Down Today? – February 2, 2026
Key Takeaways: The crypto market has seen a downturn today, with a significant decrease of 2.9% in the…

Nevada Court Temporarily Bars Polymarket From Offering Contracts in the State
Key Takeaways A Nevada state court has temporarily restrained Polymarket from offering event contracts in the state, citing…

Bitcoin Falls Below $80K As Warsh Named Fed Chair, Triggers $2.5B Liquidation
Key Takeaways Bitcoin’s price tumbled below the crucial $80,000 mark following the announcement of Kevin Warsh as the…

Strategy’s Bitcoin Holdings Face $900M in Losses as BTC Slips Below $76K
Key Takeaways Strategy Inc., led by Michael Saylor, faces over $900 million in unrealized losses as Bitcoin price…

Trump-Linked Crypto Company Secures $500M UAE Investment, Sparking Conflict Concerns
Key Takeaways A Trump-affiliated crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has garnered $500 million from UAE investors, igniting conflict…

Billionaire Michael Saylor’s Strategy Buys $75M of More Bitcoin – Bullish Signal?
Key Takeaways Michael Saylor’s firm, Strategy, has significantly increased its Bitcoin holdings by acquiring an additional 855 BTC…
Russia’s Largest Bitcoin Miner BitRiver Faces Bankruptcy Crisis – What Went Wrong?
Key Takeaways BitRiver, the largest Bitcoin mining operator in Russia, faces a bankruptcy crisis due to unresolved debts…
Polymarket Predicts Over 70% Chance Bitcoin Will Drop Below $65K
Key Takeaways Polymarket bettors forecast a 71% chance for Bitcoin to fall below $65,000 by 2026. Strong bearish…
BitMine Reports 4.285M ETH Holdings, Expands Staked Position With Massive Reward Outlook
Key Takeaways BitMine Immersion Technologies holds 4,285,125 ETH, which is approximately 3.55% of Ethereum’s total supply. The company…
US Liquidity Crisis Sparked $250B Crash, Not a ‘Broken’ Crypto Market: Analyst
Key Takeaways: A massive $250 billion crash shook the cryptocurrency markets, attributed largely to liquidity issues in the…
Vitalik Advocates for Anonymous Voting in Ethereum’s Governance — A Solution to Attacks?
Key Takeaways Vitalik Buterin proposes a two-layer governance framework utilizing anonymous voting to address collusion and capture attacks,…
South Korea Utilizes AI to Pursue Unfair Crypto Trading: Offenders Face Severe Penalties
Key Takeaways South Korea is intensifying its use of AI to crack down on unfair cryptocurrency trading practices.…