Second Assassination Attempt Barely Moves Trump's Polymarket Odds

Nearly $1 billion has been staked on the election at the crypto-based prediction market. Plus: are you ready for 20x leveraged election betting?

Nearly $1 billion has been staked on the U.S. presidential election at crypto-based prediction market Polymarket. But bettors largely shrugged off an apparent second assassination attempt on Donald Trump over the weekend.

The U.S. Secret Service found a man hiding in the bushes with an assault rifle at Trump's golf course in Florida on Sunday while the former president was playing. The gunman, identified as 38-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh of Hawaii, didn’t fire a shot.

The incident occurred about two months after another gunman fired a shot that grazed Trump's ear at a campaign event in Nevada. That incident drove up the Republican's odds of winning the election at Polymarket.

But on Monday morning New York time, Trump's odds were down slightly from Sunday, trailing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by 49-50.

The probabilities are based on how much traders are willing to pay for shares that pay out money if the predictions come true and become worthless if they don't. Bets on Polymarket are programmed into a smart contract on the Polygon blockchain and paid out in USDC, a dollar-linked token. Under a regulatory settlement, the platform blocks U.S. users, although some traders have used VPNs to get around the geofencing.

Bets on Harris Winning All 6 Swing States Only Give Her a 24% Chance

As with any U.S. presidential election, a lot is riding on the swing states.

Polymarket bettors are fairly convinced that neither candidate will win all of them: One contract asking if Harris will win all six only gives a 24% chance of that happening, while another asking if Trump will do the same is at 17%.

For the individual state contracts, currently Republicans lead in Arizona (61%), Georgia (59%), North Carolina (57%), and Pennsylvania (51%). In Nevada, the race is tied 50-50, while Democrats lead in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Polymarket continues to cast the race as closer than what professional pollsters are calling. Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin model from Sept. 11 gives Trump a strong chance to win the all-important electoral college at 61%, which, if won, dictates the rest of the election. (Silver is an advisor to Polymarket.)

While all this is happening, U.S.-regulated prediction market Kalshi has frozen its long-sought election markets pending a court decision in an appeal brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A Kalshi contract on which party will win the House in November had volume of $20,000, while another about which party will win the Senate had volume of $45,000.

The freeze looks set to last at least three more days. Oral arguments in the appeal are scheduled for Thursday, according to a Monday court filing.

Another CFTC-regulated exchange, Interactive Brokers' ForecastEx, has said it will soon list election markets. Unlike Polymarket, ForecastEx and Kalshi settle bets in fiat.

LogX Raises $4M to Bring 20X Leveraged Election Contracts to Crypto

LogX, a perpetual futures crypto trading protocol, said it raised $4 million to expand into leveraged prediction markets.

The noncustodial "DEX-like" market, which is building what it called a DeFi superapp to onboard the next generation of retail users, said on its website that it will offer up to 20X leverage on contracts on outcomes such as whether Trump or Harris will win the election.

This platform’s approach to prediction markets is similar to D8X, which launched leveraged prediction market trading in July, insofar that it relies on an oracle from Polymarket to scrape pricing data and put it into LogX for traders. However, D8X maxes out at 2X leverage.

Akshit Bordia, LogX’s Founder, explained in an interview that once the pricing data is on the platform, his protocol's market makers will take opposite positions on Polymarket to generate liquidity.

Right now, Bordia says the maximum bet for Trump or Harris election contracts is $100,000.

“What we're seeing now is the next iteration of prediction markets,” Bordia said in an interview with CoinDesk. “Many of these have grown significantly, gaining mass media attention. That's why it's become so exciting and much bigger than it was in the previous cycle."

After the election, the plan is to launch markets on sports and crypto price movements, Bordia said.

Hashed Emergent, Cumberland, DWF Ventures, and Orderly Network CEO Ryan Lee participated in the round.