The Aftermath

Ukraine Suit Parallels

Several users expressed dissatisfaction with how the market resolved, drawing parallels to previous disputes like the Ukraine suit market. Some criticized the influence of whales in determining outcomes.

Market Manipulation

Jacob noted that he was the one who first circulated the Thai government press release, which became the primary piece of evidence supporting the "Yes" argument.

Here is Jacob's statement.

This can be confirmed via market data. Jacob initially posted the statement at 8:14 am, and about an hour and a half after it began circulating, the price spiked from 12¢ to 80¢ and eventually to 99¢. This occurred several hours after both proposals had already been disputed.

Prior to the spike, prices ranged between 10¢ and 40¢, indicating a lack of market consensus at the time.

An Opaque Clarification Team

Polymarket was criticized for overriding UMA and not relying on its decentralized process in every market dispute.

There was also disagreement over which process (Polymarket or UMA) was more transparent and fair.

Nemo supported letting disputes play out without intervention. In recent weeks, Polymarket had been more liberal in issuing clarifications, possibly in response to growing distrust in the oracle process.

JessicaOnlyChild remarked that Polymarket might be using this process to gauge sentiment within the oracle system.

Polymarket Adds Ambiguity Clause

After receiving feedback, Polymarket added an ambiguity clause to future Thailand strikes Cambodia markets.

Nevertheless, the ambiguity clause did not specify how long a market could remain open after the resolution time. In practice, this created an imbalance. If there was uncertainty, the market would remain open, waiting for possible confirmation of a strike. But if it turned out there was no strike, the media would likely move on without publishing anything definitive. In that case, there would be no article to close the market, just silence. On the other hand, if a strike did happen, it would eventually be confirmed. This made the market effectively unfalsifiable in the "No" direction.

Summary

Several users compared this market to the controversial Ukraine suit market, raising concerns about whale influence and manipulation. Jacob circulated the Thai government press release that became key to the "Yes" case, with market data showing a sharp price spike shortly after his post. Polymarket was also criticized for overriding UMA and issuing clarifications more liberally, leading to debate over which process was more transparent. Although Polymarket added an ambiguity clause to future markets, it arguably introduced bias by allowing markets to stay open for an indefinite time unless a strike was confirmed. As a result, the debate could shift away from whether a qualifying event occurred within the market’s timeframe to whether there was enough ambiguity to justify delaying resolution.

Coming Up

In the next chapter, we explore how the use of P4 has shifted from addressing premature resolutions to being applied in cases where the market has expired but ambiguity remains.