Polymarket criticized for racist post targeting fake ‘baddies’
Polymarket’s Traders account has deleted a racist post that threatened to remove its prediction markets affiliate badge from accounts in India, Turkey, and Nigeria, it says are “LARPing as egirls.”
The post, which used the ethnic slur “jeet,” has whipped up major backlash from users on X, calling out the Donald Trump Jr-advised platform for using the racist term.
In it’s post, Polymarket Traders, which claims to highlight users and offer them community resources, warned “LARPing” accounts from these regions that they would lose their badges by the end of the day.
It said, “Please get your last slop posts in before then,” before signing off with “love & gratitude.”
Users called out Polymarket account over racist post
The post has received fierce criticism from Polymarket’s top traders, as well as affiliates from the rival prediction market platform Kalshi.
One account claiming to be one of the top 0.03% of traders argued that the post used a racist term, and claimed that “it’s extremely unprofessional for a Polymarket account to post that.”
Healthcare CEO Danish Nagda also called out Polymarket for using the “racial slur,” and at least one crypto news aggregator has withdrawn from the Polymarket program, which links the platform into a company’s operations.
Read more: Reform UK insider George Cottrell tied to Trump Polymarket bets worth millions
Kalshi affiliates were even more adverse to the post. One suggested that they would never open Polymarket again if they were Indian, Turkish or Nigerian, while another claimed Polymarket made the “disgusting” slur while it still wants “to operate in India and make money here.”
They said, “If [Polymarket] don’t post an apology, this needs to be escalated.”
The ‘Polybaddies’ have lost their badges
Polymarket Trader’s racist post attempted to capitalise on the new location features rolled out by X this week and weed out any E-girl pretenders in its arguably objectifying “Polybaddie” program.
This involves the platform handing out affiliate badges to female accounts within crypto that it deems are “baddies,” a slang term used to describe someone perceived as confident and sexy.
E-girls is a term that refers to a subculture of fashionable terminally online women.
According to one screenshot shared by the baddie affiliate “@Valerie_Onchain,” the Polybaddie account claimed that X had removed all of their Polybaddie badges “while we do proper KYC to ensure there aren’t fake profiles or bad actors.”
Valerie added, “Everyone who completes verification will get their badge restored in the next few days though 🫶🏽.”
Read more: Polymarket traders accused of ‘insider trading’ Nobel Peace Prize
Indeed, X accounts now reveal an account’s location (unless that account possesses a grey check).
The feature has led to many high-profile accounts that post engagement bait centered on US politics being called out for being based outside of the US.
It’s also led to an increase in racist targeting and stereotyping when it comes to discussing crypto scams, something which the crypto researcher “@Mars_DeFi” found is skewed when compared to the reality of crypto scams and the regions they are perpetrated from.
Protos has reached out to Polymarket for comment and will update this piece should we hear anything back.
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