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P2P.me Faces Insider Trading Allegations Over Polymarket Bets

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P2P.me, a cryptocurrency payments platform, is facing questions over a $20,000 Polymarket bet tied to its own fundraising campaign after disclosing that it traded on the outcome before the round opened publicly.

On March 27, P2P.me announced that it had liquidated a Polymarket betting position on its ability to meet its $6 million fundraising target. The company disclosed that it placed the bets 10 days before officially opening its funding round.

Big Polymarket Profit Sparks Insider Trading Debate

P2P.me admitted that, at the time the wagers were placed, it had already secured an oral commitment of $3 million from the venture capital firm Multicoin.

Some legal observers said the $3 million oral commitment could be viewed as material non-public information, though P2P.me said the absence of signed documents meant the outcome was still uncertain.

P2P.me further defended the trade and characterized the bet as a “vote of confidence.”

“We named the account “P2P Team” deliberately – to give a marketing signal of our presence to the community and reflect our intent to be transparent. But intent isn’t the same as action. Not disclosing at the time was a mistake we own. We took time to study the legal implications before speaking, which is why we stayed silent until now with a “No Comments” stance! – that too is a fair criticism,” it stated.

P2P.me eventually raised $5.2 million from outside investors, allowing the firm to close its Polymarket positions at $35,212. The trade generated a profit of roughly $14,700 from an initial entry of $20,500.

Following the backlash, some investors and industry insiders argued that the incident was being blown out of proportion. They attributed the trade to naiveté rather than malice.

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Simon Dedic, co-founder of Moonrock Capital and an investor in P2P.me, defended the team’s character and motive. According to him, the trade was a misguided “guerrilla marketing stunt” designed to show conviction.

“No one with any common sense would risk a $6 million raise over $15,000. The idea was to show such strong conviction in the sale that they’d even bet on themselves. This is exactly why they intentionally named the account ‘P2P team.’ Otherwise, you’d have to argue they’re the most incompetent insider traders of all time,” Dedic added.

Amid mounting criticism on the eve of its planned initial coin offering, P2P.me announced that it would route the proceeds from trading to the MetaDAO Treasury. The company clarified that MetaDAO had no prior knowledge of the trades.

This incident comes at a time when prediction markets are enjoying an explosive growth in the sector. Blockchain platform TRM Labs stated that the sector’s transaction volumes have surged from $1.2 billion in early 2025 to more than $20 billion by January 2026.

Prediction Markets Monthly Volume.
Prediction Markets Monthly Volume. Source: TRM Labs

Due to this rapid growth, there have been increasing regulatory concerns about decentralized prediction markets. Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have recently implemented stricter surveillance measures to curb insider trading.

The post P2P.me Faces Insider Trading Allegations Over Polymarket Bets appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Crypto World

Aave’s TVL Falls $8B After $293M Kelp DAO Hack

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Aave’s TVL Falls $8B After $293M Kelp DAO Hack

Total value locked on decentralized lending protocol Aave dropped by nearly $8 billion over the weekend after hackers behind the $293 million Kelp DAO exploit borrowed funds on Aave, leaving roughly $195 million in “bad debt” on the protocol and triggering withdrawals.

Data from DeFiLlama shows that Aave’s TVL fell from about $26.4 billion to $18.6 billion by Sunday, losing the top spot as the largest DeFi protocol. 

Aave v3’s lending pools for USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC) are now at 100% utilization, meaning that more than $5.1 billion worth of stablecoins cannot be withdrawn until new liquidity arrives or borrows are repaid. 

$2,540 is available to be withdrawn from the $2.87 billion USDT pool on Aave v3 at the time of writing. Source: Aave

Aave’s TVL fall shows how rapidly risk from a single security incident can spread throughout the broader, interconnected DeFi lending market, potentially leading to a severe liquidity crisis.

The incident began on Saturday when hackers stole 116,500 Kelp DAO Restaked ETH (rsETH) tokens worth about $293 million from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge and used them as collateral on Aave v3 to borrow wrapped Ether (wETH).

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Crypto analytics platform Lookonchain said the move created about $195 million in “bad debt” on Aave, which contributed to the Aave (AAVE) token tanking nearly 20% from $112 on Saturday at 6:00 pm UTC to $89.5 about 25 hours later. 

Lookonchain noted that some of the largest crypto whales to withdraw funds from Aave were the MEXC crypto exchange and Abraxas Capital at $431 million and $392 million, respectively.

Source: Grvt

Several crypto networks and protocols tied to rsETH or the LayerZero bridge have paused use of the bridge until the problem is resolved, including DeFi platform Curve Finance, stablecoin issuer Ethena and BitGo’s Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).

Aave has frozen several rsETH, wETH markets

Shortly after the Kelp DAO exploit, Aave said it froze the rsETH markets on both Aave v3 and v4 to prevent any suspicious borrowing and later stated that rsETH on Ethereum mainnet remains fully backed by underlying assets.

WETH reserves also remain frozen on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle and Linea, Aave said.

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This incident marks the first significant stress test of Aave’s “Umbrella” security model, which was introduced in June 2025 to provide automated protection against protocol bad debt while enabling users to earn rewards.

Related: Aave DAO backs V4 mainnet plan in near-unanimous vote

Earlier this month, the Bank of Canada found that Aave avoided bad debt in its v3 market by using overcollateralization, automated liquidations and other strategies that shifted risk to borrowers.

In comments to Cointelegraph, Aave defended its liquidation-based model, framing it as a core safety mechanism that protects lenders while limiting downside for borrowers.

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It comes as Aave parted ways with its longest-standing DeFi risk service provider, Chaos Labs, on April 6, following disagreements over the direction of Aave v4 and budget constraints.

Magazine: Are DeFi devs liable for the illegal activity of others on their platforms?