Crypto bettors on Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform, have wagered over $400,000 on the prediction that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will leave office before July.
At the time of writing, Polymarket bettors forecast there was a 26% chance of Zelenskyy’s early departure.
On Friday, Zelenskyy visited the White House for talks with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance about the ongoing war in Ukraine. However, the meeting ended without an agreement, as Trump accused Zelenskyy of being an uncooperative ally showing little gratitude to the United States.
“You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Trump said. “That’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”
Zelenskyy was accused of not being "thankful" for US help in the three-year war.
"You don't have the cards right now," he said. "You're either going to make a deal or we're out, and if we're out, you'll fight it out and I don't think it's going to be pretty."
Meanwhile, more than $21 million in crypto wagers have been spent on the question of whether Trump will end the war in Ukraine during his first three months in office.
According to crypto bettors on the Polymarket platform, the likelihood stands at a paltry 23% . Following Friday’s meetings at the Oval Office, one Polymarket user wrote : “[Zelenskyy] should've thanked the American people, how hard can it be to show some gratitude?”
Previously, the platform hosted similar bets on former President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential contest. While the crypto prediction platform has faced criticism, it accurately predicted Biden’s unexpected exit.
“Prediction markets give people a financial motivation for conducting thorough research and making rational analysis before placing their bets, and they provide a much higher level of accuracy versus traditional polling because of this financial motivation,” said Brian Trunzo, the former Vice President and Global Head of Business Development at Polygon Labs.
Without the promise of additional U.S. military support, Ukraine is currently mulling levying a crypto tax of up to 10% to help prop up Ukraine’s economy amid the ongoing war with Russia.