Luke Vargas

Or what about playing a role in ousting Iran's supreme leader by mid-year?

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham just warned the Ayatollah that Trump would kill him if he didn't stop a crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Well, those subjects of fevered foreign policy speculation also happen to be contracts you can purchase or bet on on crypto-based platforms like PolyMarket, which we should note has a data partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Joining me to discuss these prediction markets, which have been enjoying a boom in popularity lately, I'm joined by Wall Street Journal reporter Alexander Osipovich.

Alex, we've talked about prediction markets a little bit here, but much more so over on our Tech News Briefing podcast.

So just remind us how they operate and what has been catching your attention about them lately.

Okay.

And unsurprisingly, I mean, a lot of activity on these platforms is like around sports, you know, is IU or Oregon going to win in a few days?

But increasingly, we are seeing, as you mentioned, finance topics, the number of IPOs this year or culture topics.

And there's a notable trend we are seeing just in the last few days since this move to oust Nicolas Maduro.

We're seeing kind of a rising sense among the crowd that there could be U.S.

intervention in a host of different countries.

Just help us understand how to interpret the odds we are seeing on sites like Polymarket.

And I guess a little bit of context here, we report that somebody

We don't know who made about 400 grand betting on Maduro's downfall on Polymarket in recent days, though because of the way these platforms operate, their identity is a secret.

There's the lack of transparency on these platforms.

And there are other serious implications here, including potential corruption.

Absolutely.

I have been speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Alexander Osipovich.

Alex, thank you so much for stopping by.