The US strike on Venezuela represents the largest headline event of the new year so far. In several developments spinning off this incident, Representative Ritchie Torres is reportedly moving to introduce a bill targeting insider trading on prediction markets amid traders’ netting heavy profits on forecasted capture of President Nicolás Maduro.
The Push For Integrity In Prediction Markets
On January 3, US President Donald announced a successful military mission in Venezuela resulting in the capture of President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The Republican-led administration in Washington accuses Maduro and his spouse of running a “narco-terrorist organization,” and both parties have been arraigned to face charges of drug trafficking in New York.
Amid the numerous condemnations and reactions to this move by the US government, there have been revelations of insider trading around the event in the predictions market. Blockchain analysis page Lookonchain reports that three insider wallets placed Polymarket bets on the capture of Maduro just hours before the attack.
Data shows that these three wallets were recently created, funded, and only placed bets relating to Venezuela and Maduro’s capture to net total profits valued at $630,848. The largest of these transactions came from a trader who invested $34,000 to record gains of $409,900.
According to the founder of PunchBowl News, Jake Sherman, Rep Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) aims to introduce a bill that illegalizes this act among government officials and protects important state-related information. The bill, which would be titled the Public Integrity In Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, aims to ban all affiliated government persons from participating in the prediction market bets when exposed to certain information.
Sherman states that the description of the proposed law read:
This bill prohibits federal elected officials, political appointees, and Executive Branch employees from engaging in certain transactions involving prediction market contracts when they either possess material nonpublic information relevant to the transaction or could reasonably obtain such information through their official duties.
The restriction applies to buying, selling, or exchanging prediction market contracts tied to government policy, government action, or political outcomes on platforms engaged in interstate commerce
Notably, prediction markets surged in late 2025 following growing Wall Street interest in the blockchain market infrastructure. Kalshi, which presently ranks as the largest prediction platform, is presently valued at $11 billion after a $1 billion fundraising in December.
Crypto Market Resilient Amid Venezuela Attack
In other news, the crypto market has shown no significant negative reaction to the US attack on Venezuelan soil. Over the last day, Bitcoin has moved by 2.13% to trade at $91,414 as the total crypto market cap climbed to $3.08 trillion.
