Following money for @WSJ using words, numbers and code. Co-founder: @jourmentors. Tips: https://xitter.cf/t.co/SqCJ3JA0Wg. ∑: @TheAlligator, @MiamiHerald
New York via London via Miami
Joined February 2015
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Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
Egypt is intensifying its crackdown on journalists. After arresting an entire newsroom from fact-checking site @matsda2sh, Egyptian state security summoned for questioning @Linaattalah, a giant of independent journalism in the country: instagram.com/p/Derb1YalZUp/
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
New with @ceostroff: Nearly all recent trading volume on FIFA’s official prediction market partner has been made by a small network of accounts funded by the same wallet that collects the platform’s trading fees.
Similar patterns also accounted for most of the trading during the World Cup.
wsj.com/finance/nearly-all-v…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
When we wrote about a $5 billion flurry of same-size trades in Kalshi's perps market, the company said sophisticated traders were sniping stale quotes. A new analysis from @G_Insider raises questions about that explanation.
EXCLUSIVE: Gambling Insider's @gary_mcfarlane finds $9.8B in unusual #Kalshi ether trades, challenging the exchange's explanation for the activity.
@rajivatbarnard tells us he's "starting to have doubts" about his "tolerated sniping explanation."
gamblinginsider.com/news/197…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
Incredible @skesslr scoop: wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
JAW-DROPPING story by @skesslr ⬇️
SCOOP: While Bo Hines was leading the White House’s push to pass the Genius Act, Tether—the company with the most at stake in the bill—was steering millions of dollars to a company he co-owned.
Right after the bill passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.
[Gift link] wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
SCOOP: While Bo Hines was leading the White House’s push to pass the Genius Act, Tether—the company with the most at stake in the bill—was steering millions of dollars to a company he co-owned.
Right after the bill passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.
[Gift link] wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
Money from stablecoin company Tether flowed to Bo Hines's consulting firm while he worked in the White House on landmark stablecoin legislation. Once the law passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.
Amazing scoop by @skesslr
wsj.com/politics/policy/cryp…
SCOOP: A @WSJ analysis found some FL residents received NYC’s abatement for years despite being ineligible.
A spox for Steve Witkoff said that after being contacted by @WSJ, he paid the city nearly $78,000 for the years he wasn’t eligible.
wsj.com/us-news/law/nyc-mamd…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
Kimberly Guilfoyle was preparing for her congressional hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece when she reached out to a Trump donor with an urgent request: She needed $100,000 that she said she owed American Express—in a way that wouldn’t leave a paper trail.
“It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,” she wrote on Signal, according to messages reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Please.”
w/@DanaMattioli @drewhinshaw @JoeWSJ
wsj.com/politics/policy/guil…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
A story: I flew to Baghdad with a small team of @wsj colleagues last month to write a story about the end of the official U.S. military presence in Iraq and how the American attack on Iran has destabilized the country. 1/
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
One issue with having gotten arrested in late March 2023 was that I was unable to keep writing about the tens of thousands of innocent Russian and Ukrainian political prisoners held in Russian jails. I’ve included some of their stories in This Cursed Beautiful Land, out now
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
NEW from @KevinTDugan: New York, one of the largest markets for gambling in the U.S., escalated its fight against prediction markets Thursday by suing Polymarket’s domestic arm, alleging that the bet-on-nearly-everything site was illegally running a gambling operation. wsj.com/us-news/law/ny-sues-…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
A few days ago, we published a story about Polymarket's headlong rush to growth. One part of the story was especially interesting to me: Polymarket's relationship with Drake.
Last fall, Polymarket was in talks with Drake about an agreement in the tens of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the talks.
Spokespeople for Polymarket and Drake said the parties didn’t sign a deal. The musician subsequently name-dropped both Polymarket and Coplan in his album “Iceman.”
Coplan attended Drake’s private album-release party at a castlelike mansion in Toronto, where he posed in a photo with former NBA player Tristan Thompson.
In late April, Polymarket opened a market on whether Drake would say “Polymarket” on the album, one of many markets it launched related to that album. A single trader, whose account was created shortly before the album dropped and bet only on album-related markets, cashed out $7,800 in bets that he would. Hours before the album release, Drake’s team played it for Polymarket employees, who heard the mention of the company and deleted the market out of concern that it presented an insider-trading risk, according to data reviewed by the Journal and a person familiar with the matter.
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
Additional research on Kalshi perps volume.
"The evidence is consistent with volume that exists because it is costless to produce rather than because it serves a trading purpose."
Kalshi perps volume debate: what happened when exchange fees switched on
On 8 June Kalshi filed its first perpetual fee schedule (takers 12.0–2.6 bps, makers 5.0–0.6 bps), effective 24 June at 10:00 ET. A "Temporary Perpetual Fee Rebate Program" returning all net fees to self-clearing members was filed the same week, but its stated effective date was 9 July, retroactive to the filing. For roughly 40 hours from 24 June, market participants therefore faced the full schedule with no rebate in force.
Within hours of the fee going live, venue-wide volume fell 80–92%. Over 25 June the BTC and ETH contracts traded $23m and $21m, against $296m and $109m on 23 June, and were close to dormant in the quietest hours. This was not a market-wide lull. Binance BTC+ETH volume sat near its June high on 24–25 June, so Kalshi's volume expressed as a share of Binance, which nets out any common movement, fell by more than a factor of ten.
Volume then resumed abruptly around 08:00 UTC on 26 June and exceeded pre-event levels. Fixed-ticket volume was three to five times its 23 June level, and the ETH ticket doubled from $5,000 to $10,000, holding 69–75% of ETH volume over the following days.
Link to a first working paper version with more deeps dives is in the comments.
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
NEW w/ @ceostroff @byneilmehta: The CFTC is examining unusual Kalshi trades first surfaced here by @beniduboss. Since August, almost one million trades were made in a single market in nearly identical amounts.
wsj.com/finance/currencies/5…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
WOW -- really great article all around by @CeliaBernhardt6 on the growth-hacking stealth ads taking over social media
An army of social-media users has found a lucrative side hustle in creating promotional content from secondary accounts. on.wsj.com/4dKUYD6
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
Make sure to read this deeply reported dive into Polymarket’s growth at any cost — featuring Drake, LeBron, wild Social Security number hacks, Adderall, and so many stolen debit cards
NEW: A story full of scoops big and small from @ceostroff and @byneilmehta.
> Polymarket removed one of its anti-money-laundering programs during a fraud attack, alarming some staff; CEO Shayne Coplan downplayed risks
> Persistent engineering glitches have cost some customers thousands
> Internal audio & text messages reveal Coplan’s management style
> Some current & former employees & investors are concerned Poly has prioritized growth at all costs
> Company is trying to course-correct; eyeing an IPO by the end of 2027
> Talks with Drake fell through; rapper name-dropped Poly in a song anyways; a market on the album saw suspicious trading
And more. Gift link below.
wsj.com/business/polymarkets…
Caitlin Ostroff retweeted
NEW: A story full of scoops big and small from @ceostroff and @byneilmehta.
> Polymarket removed one of its anti-money-laundering programs during a fraud attack, alarming some staff; CEO Shayne Coplan downplayed risks
> Persistent engineering glitches have cost some customers thousands
> Internal audio & text messages reveal Coplan’s management style
> Some current & former employees & investors are concerned Poly has prioritized growth at all costs
> Company is trying to course-correct; eyeing an IPO by the end of 2027
> Talks with Drake fell through; rapper name-dropped Poly in a song anyways; a market on the album saw suspicious trading
And more. Gift link below.
wsj.com/business/polymarkets…