ZAP // Allison Dinner / EPA / IADE-Michoko / Pixabay
BBC research highlights five specific cases in which bettors won millions in blockchain. The use of privileged information is illegal, but to date no one has been charged under a law that dates back almost 100 years.
Throughout Donald Trump’s second term, which began in January 2025, market operators have invested million dollars just before the President of the United States makes important announcements.
The BBC data on the volume of trading in several financial markets and cross-referenced it with some of Trump’s most relevant statements with an impact on the markets (and the values traded). The analysis identified a consistent pattern of peaks in movement that occur hours, sometimes minutes, before a post on social media or a press interview becomes public.
Some analysts say that this pattern presents characteristics of illegal use of privileged informationwhen operations are carried out based on information that is not available to the general public. Others claim that the picture is more complex and that some investors have become more adept at anticipating the President’s interventions (without, therefore, resorting to privileged information).
Below are five of the most significant examples identified by the BBC.
March 9, 2026: “The war is practically over”
Some of the biggest movements occurred in operations on oil in the futures market. Nine days after the start of the war between the US and Israel against Iran, Trump told CBS News, the BBC’s partner in the US, in a telephone interview, that the conflict was “practically concluded”. (The times shown here follow the Greenwich Mean Time zone):
- 6:29 pm: investments in oil soar
- 7:16 pm: Trump says the war is practically over
- 7:17 pm: oil prices fall 25%
The first time the public became aware of the interview was at 7:16 pm, when a journalist published the matter on the social network X (formerly Twitter). Market traders reacted to the news that the conflict could end much sooner than expected by selling contracts, which caused the price to fall by around 25%.
However, market data shows that there was a sharp increase in bets on falling oil prices at 6:29 p.m. 47 minutes before of the journalist’s publication. The traders who made these bets will have profited millions of dollars from this movement in the price of oil.
March 23, 2026: “complete and total resolution of hostilities”
Two weeks after this first case — and just two days after threatening to “annihilate” Iran’s energy plants — Trump published on his Truth Social social network that the US had held “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS” with Iran about a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION” of hostilities.
The declaration was a big surprise for diplomacy specialists and market operators:
- 10:48 am – 10:50 am: bets on the decline in oil prices soar
- 11:04 am: Donald Trump posts a message about the “total resolution” of hostilities
- 11:05 am: oil falls 11%
Immediately, stocks rose and the US benchmark oil price, which had been rising, fell sharply. And 14 minutes before the President’s post there was an unusually high number of bets on the price of oil in the US.
The same pattern was observed in operations with Brent oil contracts, the other main reference indicator.
The negotiations seemed “abnormalfor sure,” an oil sector analyst told the BBC at the time.
April 9, 2026: “Liberation Day” break
In addition to the war in the Middle East, there are other examples of trading activity that have raised suspicions.
On April 2, 2025, Trump announced what he called “Liberation Day”, a broad package of tariffs on products from practically every country in the world. To the Stock markets around the world sank.
However, a week later, when Trump announced a 90-day “pause” on tariffs for all countries except China, equity markets soared.
The benchmark S&P 500 index rose 9.5%, one of the biggest gains in a single day since the Second World War (1939-1945):
- 5:00 p.m.: traders start placing big bets on the rise of the stock market
- 5:18 pm: Trump announces pause on tariffs
- 5:19 pm: stock market begins a historic rise
Once again, an unusual trading pattern emerged around these events, with an unusually high number of bets ahead of the announcement on a fund that tracks the S&P 500. The number of contracts traded jumped to more than 10,000 per minute just after 5 p.m. Earlier that day, that number was in the hundreds.
Some traders bet more than two million dollars on the market rising that day, even after seven consecutive days of declines. The strong shooting may have generated a profit of almost 20 million dollars.
Later that week, several US Democratic senators wrote to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), asking the regulator to investigate whether the President’s announcements “benefited those close to his administration and allies, at the expense of the American public”.
Asked by the BBC whether it had looked into these allegations, an SEC spokesperson declined to comment. The White House, for its part, did not respond to a BBC request for comment on any of the unusual negotiating activities analyzed in this report.
January 3, 2026: Maduro is captured
The recent growth of online prediction markets has also attracted the attention of observers.
Platforms based on blockchain — a type of decentralized database that uses cryptography to record transactions —, like Polymarket and Kalshi, give users the possibility of speculating on topics ranging from climate and baseball to US foreign policy.
Donald Trump Jr.son of the North American President, is an investor in Polymarket and is a member of its advisory board. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Kalshi and was contacted by the BBC for comment.
In December 2025, a user created an account called Burdensome-Mix on Polymarket. On December 30, 2025, he made his first bet that the then President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, would leave office by the end of January 2026.
Between December 30, 2025 and January 2, 2026, the account bet a total of $32,500. When Maduro was captured by US special forces and removed from power the next day, the Burdensome-Mix account gained $436,000.
Shortly afterwards, the account changed its username and no longer placed bets:
- December 2025: Burdensome-Mix account is created
- January 2, 2026: account bets $32,000 on Maduro’s downfall
- January 3, 2026: Maduro is captured and Burdensome-Mix wins $436,000
February 28, 2026: attacks on Iran
According to the analysis website blockchain Bubblemaps, six accounts were created on Polymarket in February. They all placed bets that a US attack on Iran would occur by February 28, 2026. When the attacks were confirmed by Trump, in the early hours of that day, the accounts collectively profited around 1.2 million dollars.
Five of those six users have not placed bets again since then, but recent activity from one of the accounts indicates that it subsequently won $163,000 by correctly betting on a ceasefire between the US and Iran until April 7, 2026, announced by both countries that day.
- February 2026: six accounts are created on Polymarket and subsequently bet that an attack on Iran would occur by February 28
- February 28, 2026: USA and Israel attack Iran and the accounts gain 1.2 million dollars (about 6 million reais)
Polymarket told the BBC that it “sets, maintains and applies the highest standards of market integrity”, adding that it works “proactively” with regulators and authorities to this end.
In March this year, both Polymarket and Kalshi announced new rules to combat the use of privileged information. The CFTC did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC, but its president recently told a congressional committee that the agency has “zero tolerance” toward fraud and insider trading.
Meanwhile, it also emerged that the White House last month sent an internal email to employees, warning them not to use inside information to place bets on prediction markets.
Spokesman Davis Ingle then told the BBC that “any suggestion that government officials are involved in this type of activity without evidence is unfounded and irresponsible.”
It’s all hard to prove
O use of privileged information is illegal for most Americans since the passage of the Securities Act of 1933. The legislation was expanded in 2012 to include U.S. government officials, although to date no one has been accused under this standard.
Paul Oudin, professor specializing in financial regulation law at ESSEC Business School, in France, says the rules are difficult to apply.
“Financial authorities do not move forward with a process if they cannot identify the source of the information,” says Oudin. None of the US financial officials contacted by the BBC acknowledged the allegations of insider trading.
“It is possible to have large operations on a financial asset that clearly indicate that someone had prior access to what Donald Trump was about to announce,” says Oudin.
“However, there is a strong probability that no one will be charged,” he adds.
