The United States has taken the president of another country into custody, and Trump's platform says this doesn't count as "invasion."

Title: The US Has Arrested Their President, and Trump’s Platform Says This Doesn’t Count as “Invasion”

Author: Liu Kaiwen

Source:

Repost: Mars Finance

On January 3rd, local time in Venezuela, U.S. military forces entered simultaneously by air and ground, took control of several key military facilities, and transported President Nicolás Maduro to the United States.

Precision airstrikes, armed ground control, kidnapping a head of state… According to the general definition under international law, this constitutes a military invasion of a sovereign country.

Meanwhile, on the other side, on the world’s hottest prediction market Polymarket, a group of traders have already begun celebrating their own victory in advance due to this attack.

They bet before the incident that U.S. troops would invade Venezuela, and the smoke and gunfire reported in the news seemed to be celebrating their high-odds huge profits in advance.

At that moment, no one would think that they had already become losers the moment they participated in the trade.

The news reported worldwide, but it never happened on Polymarket.

The “Invasion Before” market “U.S. will invade Venezuela before January 31, 2026” was straightforward in its definition of invasion before the attack: “A military offensive aimed at establishing control by U.S. forces.”

After the attack, the probability of this market shot up from 2% to 80%. This mode of trading based on odds and probabilities allowed traders who bet before the attack to realize huge floating profits.

And just as mainstream media around the world reported “U.S. attacks Venezuela,” multiple bets on “No” suddenly appeared in the market, confidently asserting “U.S. did not invade Venezuela.” This caused the probability to fall back to a low of 7%.

Even after Trump brazenly said “run Venezuela” (operate Venezuela) following the attack, as of the time of writing, this market has not settled, and the probability has fallen back to 4%.

This globally shocking military invasion seems as if it never happened on Polymarket.

“Tailored” rule updates: denying an invasion through wordplay

If you look for evidence of an invasion happening on Polymarket, there is some: hours after the attack, the platform’s official rules were supplemented:

Simply put: U.S. entry and bombing do not count as invasion. Trump saying invasion, occupation, or operation do not count as invasion. Kidnapping the president also does not count as invasion.

But as always, “Only military actions aimed at establishing control count as invasion.”

Writing these into the official rules is probably more rigorous than the requirements for employment on the household registration book. Traders who bet earlier did not need to consider these hidden clauses when analyzing military developments.

Meanwhile, traders (mostly whales) betting during the period when “No” odds surged relied on the tailored rule updates to once again achieve significant profits.

The same scenario also occurred on another market “U.S. and Venezuela will have a military conflict within 2025.” On December 26, 2025, Trump publicly stated in an interview that the U.S. destroyed an important facility inside Venezuela.

Several mainstream media outlets subsequently reported on this, with CNN pointing out that the operation was “planned and carried out by the CIA.”

Shortly after the incident, the platform issued a rule supplement stating that “actions carried out by non-military intelligence agencies do not qualify.”

Coincidentally, the CIA falls under the category of non-military intelligence agencies.

In the absence of the U.S. government officially clarifying the operation’s attribution, Polymarket, based on CNN’s report citing “anonymous sources,” precisely excluded this military strike from settlement.

Why were the rules changed? Digging into the Trump family’s “prediction market” ties

When losing traders gathered on forums to protest, a more fundamental question emerged: why did Polymarket risk damaging its reputation by changing the rules in front of everyone?

Clues point to some unusual names at the top of the platform.

Despite wearing the cloak of decentralization, Polymarket is a real private company regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). And a key investment that changed its fate happened last August:

Donald Trump Jr.—the eldest son of the current U.S. president—formally invested in Polymarket through his private investment firm, and he immediately joined the company’s “Advisory Committee.”

A fascinating coincidence on the timeline: after Trump Jr. invested, Polymarket, which had long operated in regulatory gray areas, quickly obtained CFTC operational approval, thus legalizing its operations in the U.S.

All five top commissioners of the CFTC are directly appointed by the president.

“This is just normal business investment,” some comments try to downplay the connection, “the Trump administration has always supported cryptocurrency innovation.”

The next step is to verify whether people around Trump are using information asymmetry to profit from Polymarket.

From on-chain data to the White House circle: when “coincidences” become too many to be coincidences

Let’s turn our attention back to three hours before the raid.

In another related market “Maduro will step down before January 31, 2026,” a previously inactive new wallet suddenly injected $30,000 into this market, betting “Yes.” As Maduro was put on a plane, this $30,000 turned into over $400,000 within hours.

The behavior pattern of this account is highly suspicious: newly registered, single deposit, betting on only one market within a specific time window, and immediately withdrawing profits. This is a textbook example of using prediction markets as private ATMs.

Who is this “insider”?

On-chain analysis blogger @Andrey_10gwei found that, by comparing the transaction amounts on exchanges, the source of this insider account’s funds can be traced back to an account named “stevencharles.sol.”

Steven Charles?

Opening the WLFI core member website managed by Trump Jr., you find that the second row, first from the left, is one of the co-founders of the company, also a New York real estate developer, who has provided campaign funds to Trump, with a close relationship spanning nearly 40 years.

His full name? Steven Charles Witkoff. Perfectly matches the on-chain domain “stevencharles.”

A mysterious account that turned $30,000 into $400,000 in three hours, a source of funds named “stevencharles,” and a business magnate closely connected to the presidential family who can directly influence Polymarket.

Three nearly zero-probability events linked together no longer can be explained as mere coincidences.

Conclusion

Polymarket, touted as a decentralized fair trading platform, may just be a financial tool for ordinary people to profit by betting on outcomes.

But perhaps in corners invisible to ordinary people, it has long been reduced to a white glove that can arbitrarily modify the definitions of right and wrong, frequently using rule updates to intervene in market trading behavior and exploiting information asymmetries to drain people’s assets repeatedly.

How long ordinary people can survive here entirely depends on the desires and moral bottom line of the elite groups.