FTX Lets Trump “Trolls” Hold Onto US Election Bets Until February

By Mat Di Salvo

Trading exchange FTX is allowing those who bet on Trump to win the 2020 election to hold onto their bets until February, following a flurry of complaints. 

If Trump returns to the White House next year (seemingly unlikely) those who bet on him to win will receive their money—and will not lose the potential millions bet on him to win.

“We have decided, just this once, to allow TRUMP and TRUMPWIN to be held for free until February 1st, 2021. If, by then, Trump has been unambiguously reelected to the presidency, they will pay out $1.” 

TRUMP and TRUMPWIN are futures contracts that represent bets on the US election. If Trump won the election, the price of the contract would reach $1, the contract would expire, and bettors could cash out. But Trump lost, so those contracts became worthless. 

Now, FTX added a link allowing those who bet to extend their bets—for free—until February. On the off-chance that Trump manages to retain control over his presidency, they could cash out. A previous rule stated that holders had to pay $0.1 to extend the contract. 

The exchange bent the rules because of the divisive nature of the election—despite Joe Biden being declared a winner by...well, nearly everyone. 

“Some users have complained about us following the rules, and instead want us to modify the rules to favor their preferred candidate,” FTX yesterday wrote on Twitter. 

Leaders around the world have started to congratulate President-elect Biden and the Associated Press logged the result of the election on the blockchain. 

But since the result, Donald Trump has claimed that the election was a sham and has demanded a recount. He is pushing for lawsuits in a number of states to take on Biden. 

This led to those who made bets on Trump winning the election with FTX to claim the result is not in yet.

“We have, this once, given in to the trolls. We regret deeply doing this. In the future, we will not do this,” the exchange said in another tweet.

“We will never again allow users’ baseless complaints to influence the outcome of prediction market contracts on FTX.” 

But for now, those who bet on Trump to win will be crying into their crypto cornflakes.

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