Polymarket Resumes Trading After Security Incident

Polymarket has restarted trading on its international platform. The company had halted trading on October 29 after users reported withdrawals they had not approved. A security incident at a third-party provider had led to unauthorized withdrawals of funds from user wallets. After a pause of about one hour, trading reopened at around 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and the company announced that it had identified and fixed the issue.

Blockchain analytics firms Betting Intelligence and Polysights estimate that at least about 2.43 million euros (2.7 million dollars) in assets were withdrawn from 710 wallets. This figure is an estimate by independent firms and not a total verified by Polymarket. The company said its separate US platform was not affected by the incident.

A source speaking to CNBC linked the incident to DebugBear, a UK-based website performance monitoring provider. DebugBear acknowledged that a security incident had occurred and asked its customers to remove the related embedded code from their websites. Polymarket said it had referred the matter to UK law enforcement.

The company said it will fully cover the losses of affected investors. It announced that funds of users with losses of less than about 8,985 euros (10,000 dollars) will be restored by October 30, while users with larger losses will need to sign a release form to access their funds. The incident occurred a few days before the US midterm elections, which were expected to bring increased activity on the company's platforms.