Polymarket Faces Governance Attack by Top-5 UMA Token Holder
An Ethereum wallet known as 'BornTooLate.Eth' executed a governance attack on UMA, a decentralized oracle protocol used by Polymarket, by acquiring approximately 1.3 million UMA tokens. This positioned them among the top holders, enabling significant influence over dispute resolutions.
Key points:
- UMA allows token holders to vote on disputed outcomes in prediction markets.
- Controversial resolutions include topics like Barron Trump and Venezuela's election.
- The Ukraine-themed contract required speculation on U.S. access to rare earth resources.
- BornTooLate.Eth voted 'yes' on this resolution despite no signed deal being reported.
Market data indicates that the largest win from this contract was just over $55,000, while losses were comparatively moderate, with the most significant loss at around $73,000. Accumulating the tokens for the attack would have cost over $2 million.
Polymarket stated it will not issue refunds, asserting this was not a market failure, and is collaborating with the UMA team to prevent future occurrences.