Polymarket confirms security incident after internal wallet loss

Polymarket, a major decentralized prediction market platform, has confirmed a security incident that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars from an internal operations wallet. The company states that user funds and the platform's core market resolution functions were not affected.

The incident was first identified on May 22 by blockchain researcher ZachXBT, who flagged suspicious outflows from a contract linked to Polymarket on the Polygon network. On-chain data showed a pattern of approximately 5,000 POL tokens being drained every 30 seconds to an external address. Initial loss estimates from various blockchain analytics firms ranged from $520,000 to over $700,000.

In public statements, Polymarket developers attributed the exploit to the compromise of a private key for a wallet used in internal "top-up" or "rewards payout" operations. Josh Stevens, the platform's vice president of engineering, specified that the key was six years old and used exclusively for funding internal services. He stated that all permissions for the compromised key were immediately revoked.

The company emphasized that the breach was an operational security failure and did not involve an...