Alex Goldenberg

But that's not really what alarms me.

Someone making money off of military advancements.

What really alarms me is the incentive structure that we've created.

Picture this.

Polymarket has markets on village level territorial control, specific train stations, tactical movements in Ukraine.

And think of Ukrainian soldiers who earn around 500 a month.

I think Russian soldiers earn around 2000 a month.

A $5,000 bet, which is entirely possible on these markets, could represent a 10-month salary for a soldier.

Now imagine you're an officer making a tactical decision.

Do we defend this position or do we fall back?

That should purely be a military calculation.

But now there's a potential financial dimension that we're introducing.

If you or subordinates can access these markets...

There's suddenly a way to profit from outcomes you directly influence.

And to be clear, we don't know or have any confirmed cases of Ukrainians or Russian soldiers actually doing this, but that's almost worse.

We have no way of knowing.

The markets exist.

The incentives exist.

The capability exists through anonymous crypto wallets.

We're just hoping no one acts on them.