Hack steals funds from Polymarket’s international exchange users

UPDATE - follow-up to Polymarket reports outage on international exchange, halts trading:

What Happened

Some users of Polymarket’s international exchange saw unauthorized withdrawals on Thursday afternoon after a hack of an unnamed third‑party provider. Traders first reported the withdrawals on social media. Polymarket halted trading on the platform and restored it at 3:00 p.m. ET after fixing the issue on its end. The number of affected users remains unclear.

Reaction

The company has referred the case to U.K. law enforcement, the jurisdiction of the third‑party provider, and pledged to reimburse any trader who lost funds. It said the U.S. version of the platform was not compromised. The hack follows a June incident where a vendor was also reported compromised and refunds were promised.

Context

Polymarket runs its international prediction‑market exchange as a decentralized finance service on the Polygon blockchain and is not regulated in the United States. Decentralized finance platforms operate without a central authority, limiting traditional regulatory oversight. The breach occurs just days before the U.S. midterm elections on Nov 3, when both its international and U.S. exchanges expect higher trading volumes.