Vitalik Buterin says he supports the existence of Hezbollah betting section on Polymarket

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he supports the existence of a Hezbollah betting section on the decentralized predictions platform Polymarket.

The markets include bets on whether Israel will invade Lebanon within certain timeframes, if there will be a ceasefire and if the U.S. military takes action in the region this year.

Crypto community member "Legendary" had raised concern in an X post on Monday that the section “makes a war look like a football game to bet on.”

Responding early Tuesday, Buterin argued that from a trader’s perspective, Polymarket is a betting site but from a viewer's perspective, it’s a news site.

“There are all kinds of people (incl elites) on Twitter and the internet making harmful and inaccurate predictions about conflicts and being able to go and see if people with actual skin in the game think that something has a 2% chance or a 50% chance is a valuable feature that can help keep people sane,” he said.

The Ethereum co-founder added that it wasn’t about “making money from bad stuff happening" but rather “creating an environment where speech has consequences (so both unjustified fearmongering *and* unjustified complacency are punished), without relying on governmental or corporate censors.”

Questioned by Chainlink community liaison Zach Rynes on the potential for assassination prediction markets where someone could take real-life action to force a certain outcome, Buterin said he would oppose such markets. “To me, the dividing line is: is the market acting as a primary *incentive* for people to do bad things so they can insider-trade on them.”

Rynes acknowledged it was an extreme example but argued that any prediction market related to an influenceable event could incentivize action in the real world, even if that wasn’t the intention. 

Buterin agreed but suggested such platforms were still far away from that type of scale, adding he would support Polymarket introducing size-based soft caps to help avoid such outcomes.

Polymarket considers token launch

Buterin participated in Polymarket’s $45 million Series B funding round , announced in May, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and existing investors 1confirmation and ParaFi.

Last week, The Information reported that Polymarket is considering raising more than $50 million in fresh capital and launching a token , citing anonymous sources.