Polymarket Suffers UMA Governance Attack After Rouge Actor Becomes Top-5 Token Staker

A rogue histrion operating from an Ethereum wallet 'BornTooLate.Eth' has engaged successful a governance onslaught connected UMA, a decision-making oracle utilized by Polymarket, to onslaught the result of a Ukraine-themed declaration by becoming 1 of the largest holders of UMA tokens.

UMA is simply a decentralized "optimistic" oracle protocol that resolves disputes successful prediction markets by allowing UMA token holders to ballot connected contentious outcomes. It has faced its stock of contention for resolving disputed markets, specified arsenic Barron Trump's engagement successful a Presidential meme coin, the quality of 'finding' the OceanGate submarine, and Venezuela's contested election, drafting disapproval owed to subjective decisions that frustrated definite marketplace participants.

On-chain information shows that BornTooLate.eth has astir 1.3 cardinal UMA tokens, making them a top-5 governance staker and giving them important sway implicit the solution of UMA disputes.

In the lawsuit of this Ukraine-themed marketplace that was attacked, the contract asked bettors to speculate connected the anticipation of a woody being signed involving U.S. entree to the country's complaint world resources by the extremity of March.

A woody is successful the works, reports say, but thing has been signed. And yet connected Polymarket, it resolved to 'yes' aft BornTooLate.Eth used his staked UMA tokens to ballot 'yes' connected the resolution.

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Curiously, this onslaught doesn't look to person netted a ample payday for immoderate of the participants.

Market information from on-chain curator Polymarket Analytics shows that the largest victor from the declaration took location conscionable implicit $55,000.

Likewise, the losses were rather mean compared to different closely-watched Polymarket contracts with the biggest loser forfeiting astir $73,000.

An etherscan page for BornTooLate.Eth shows that the histrion began accumulating UMA tokens implicit a twelvemonth ago. Given their holdings of implicit 1.3 cardinal tokens, gathering that benignant of treasury for the onslaught would person outgo implicit $2 million.

For its part, Polymarket says nary refunds volition beryllium issued due to the fact that this isn't a "market failure" and said successful a connection connected Discord it is moving with the UMA oracle squad to forestall it from happening again.

"This marketplace resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification," a spokesperson posted connected Discord. "We’re committed to gathering the aboriginal of prediction markets, which requires gathering resilient systems successful which everyone tin trust."

Polymarket laminitis Shayne Coplan didn't instantly respond to a petition for comment.