97.2% win rate isn’t skill. It isn’t luck. According to new research from the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC), it may be non-public U.S. military information — monetized on a crypto prediction market and broadcast to anyone watching the chain. ACDC identified 152 wallets on Polymarket that collectively earned roughly $8 million betting on military and defense outcomes, on a platform where trades are public but traders stay anonymous. The financial crime concern is real. The national-security concern is worse — a growing pattern reminiscent of how a surveillance app can be quietly weaponized for covert intelligence operations.
The Orca Pattern: Show Up, Win Big, Vanish
These wallets follow a disturbingly simple playbook: open an account, place one massive long-shot bet, collect winnings, and disappear.
ACDC calls them “Orcas” — wallets that place $2,500 or more within a single hour on outcomes priced at 35% probability or lower, then vanish after cashing out. Across most Polymarket contracts, long-shot bets succeed roughly 14% of the time. In political markets, that climbs to about 25%. In military and defense markets, it jumps to 52%. The 152 wallets ACDC flagged as “military Orcas” reportedly hit at 97.2%.
Here are the numbers worth sitting with:
- 556 total Orca wallets were identified, with 152 concentrated specifically in military and defense markets.
- Those 152 wallets earned approximately $8 million collectively — a 97.2% win rate against a 14% baseline for comparable long-shot bets.
For context, U.S. Army Special Forces Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke — indicted in the first-ever prediction-market insider-trading case, allegedly converting $33,000 into roughly $400,000 by betting on Nicolás Maduro’s removal — is not one of the 152 Orcas. According to ACDC, he built positions more gradually than the fast single-bet style that defines Orca wallets. That means the Orca classification captures only part of the suspected insider-trading problem.
“Most people vastly underestimate how observable unusual betting activity actually is on Polymarket… It would be naive to think foreign-intelligence agencies aren’t monitoring these markets.” — David Szakonyi, ACDC co-founder.
The Copycat Cascade Nobody Planned For
When Orcas move, automated bots and deep-pocketed whales follow — turning a suspicious trade into a public intelligence signal.
Here’s where transparency stops being a virtue. Orca trades sit on a public blockchain — think of it as a group chat where everyone can read the messages but nobody knows who sent them. Large traders and automated bots reportedly monitor that feed closely. Before U.S. strikes on Iran in June 2025, a bot and a whale mirrored an Orca’s position with approximately $200,000 and $100,000 respectively, according to Reuters. A similar copycat cascade reportedly preceded February U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran.
The blockchain’s openness — marketed as an accountability feature — may function here as a real-time intelligence broadcast visible to adversaries and allies alike.
ACDC recommends:
- Mandatory identity verification
- Payout freezes on suspicious trades
- An outright ban on military-linked contracts
ACDC argues that law-enforcement investigations alone won’t close the gap. Polymarket says it refers suspicious wallets to authorities and partnered with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis after the Van Dyke indictment to monitor trades for suspicious patterns. The CFTC is actively building jurisdiction over prediction markets and has initiated at least three enforcement actions to date. The Department of Defense declined to comment — a response that, analysts suggest, leaves a critical accountability gap unaddressed.
