The days of establishing intricate decentralized finance schemes or placing directional bets in the spot or futures markets to make significant profits in the cryptocurrency space are long gone.With the help of the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket, some traders are currently producing returns that beat the market. A recent example:The anonymous user u/MeLLoN98, who is a prominent member of Reddit’s r/CryptoCurrency community, purchased almost 90,000 shares on the Yes side of Polymarket’s now-expired betting contract “Will BTC hit $50,000 in February?” and made an astounding 550% return on his investment.
After bitcoin (BTC) surged beyond $50,000 on the Nasdaq-listed Coinbase (COIN) market, reaching its highest level since December 2021, the contract resolved to Yes on Monday.On Polymarket, traders can purchase or sell result shares, which, in the event that the outcome is accurate, can be redeemed for one dollar.
“I converted 110,000 Moons to 14,000 USDC on Kraken and bought 91,409 shares on Polymarket at an average price of about 15 cents. So I paid $14K and got $91.4K,” u/MeLLoN98 told CoinDesk in an interview conducted over X. MOON is the native token of the r/CryptoCurrency community, which has 7.4 million users.
MOON ERC-20 tokens are distributed as rewards to community members for their posts or comments in the subreddit and can be freely traded and spent in the community for various purposes. USDC is the world’s second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, with over $27 billion in market capitalization.
Put differently, u/MeLLoN98 wagered on the price of bitcoin using his complimentary MOON tokens and gained more than $91,000.u/MeLLoN98 stated that he intends to use the winnings to amass other MOON.
“Moons are getting on Arbitrum One next month with a partnership with Celer Network, so more liquidity is coming,” the trader said, explaining his plans to buy more MOON.
There are numerous different betting contracts linked to ether and bitcoin on Polymarket.One was introduced in December and lets traders wager on whether or not the price of bitcoin would reach a record high on Binance on March 31 or before.As of this writing, shares in the contract’s Yes side were trading for 18 cents, meaning there was only an 18% chance that bitcoin would rise above $68,789 by the conclusion of the first quarter.More than 230,000 shares of the Yes side of the contract have been bought by u/MeLLoN98, also known as RedditMoons-10$ on Polymarket.
“This bet is a lot more crazier. I paid approximately $27k and if it happens I’ll get $230k,” u/MeLLoN98 said.