Polymarket hires Chainalysis after soldier charged in insider case

Polymarket announced Thursday that it hired blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis to monitor trading activity and enforce market integrity rules on its platform.

Under the agreement, Chainalysis will supply on-chain surveillance tools and investigative services. The package includes a detection model built on Chainalysis Data Solutions, on-chain threat prevention, blockchain-verified evidence generation and professional services such as training, detection development and support for complex investigations.

The partnership follows the arrest last week of a U.S. Army soldier accused of using classified information to place bets tied to a military operation involving former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Federal prosecutors identified the suspect as Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, a master sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Prosecutors allege he placed more than $33,000 in wagers on Polymarket and later collected nearly $410,000 in winnings. Van Dyke pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York, was released on $250,000 bond, ordered to surrender his passport and faces travel restrictions. Polymarket reported it detected the activity and notified federal authorities before the arrest.

Polymarket framed the agreement as a way to pair its public, on-chain recordkeeping with external monitoring and enforcement. Founder Shayne Coplan wrote in the announcement, “Polymarket was built on-chain because transparency matters, and our platform shows what markets can look like when trades are open, traceable, and accountable by design.” Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin described the collaboration as setting “a new standard for market integrity enforcement.”

The companies stated the surveillance tools will allow faster detection of suspicious trades and stronger evidence collection for enforcement. The detection model will analyze on-chain data to identify unusual order flows and, where possible, link wallets to known actors. Chainalysis will also train Polymarket staff and help build custom detection logic for prediction-market use cases.

Polymarket has faced regulatory scrutiny previously. The company settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 over allegations related to binary options and later launched a regulated version of its site for U.S. users. The company reported large trading volumes in 2026, with weekly volume often approaching or exceeding $1 billion, and is reportedly seeking to raise $400 million at about a $15 billion valuation. This year it upgraded its exchange infrastructure, including new smart contracts, a rewritten central limit order book engine and a new collateral token, Polymarket USD (pUSD).

The Department of Justice case is among the most prominent alleged instances of insider trading on a prediction market. Polymarket added the Chainalysis tools will help the company escalate suspicious activity to law enforcement and produce blockchain-verified evidence that can support investigations.