October 21, 2026
Blockchain analysis reported by the Wall Street Journal suggests about $108M of the $167M traded on ADI Predictstreet came from 795 apparently linked wallets. Gibraltar found no breach so far.
ADI Predictstreet, the company that paid a reported $150 million to become FIFA’s official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup, is facing serious questions about how much of its trading was real. An analysis of public blockchain data found that around $108 million of the platform’s $167 million in volume came from a network of wallets that appear to be linked to the company itself.
Who: ADI Predictstreet, FIFA’s Official Prediction Market Partner for the World Cup 2026
What: about $108M of $167M traded came from 795 apparently linked wallets
Concern: possible wash trading — not proven
Regulator: Gibraltar’s preliminary review found no breach of self-trading rules
Company response: did not respond to requests for comment
What the blockchain data shows
Prediction markets that run on public blockchains leave a permanent, open record of every trade. That transparency is what allowed three Harvard University students to map the activity on ADI Predictstreet. They identified a network of 795 cryptocurrency wallets that traded almost exclusively with one another.
The wallets were reportedly funded from a single cryptocurrency address — the same address that also collected the platform’s transaction fees. Since late August, that network has accounted for 99% of all trading on the platform, which suggests that very little of the recent activity came from independent customers.
The pattern first appeared during the World Cup in July, when two wallets alone processed more than $81 million in transactions across hundreds of markets. After the tournament ended, trading slowed to a trickle, with the wallet network making up almost everything that remained.
The findings were corroborated by Solidus Labs, a crypto analytics firm, and academics who study anomalous trading also questioned whether the reported volume reflected genuine market demand.
The numbers behind the questions
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total volume traded (to late September) | $167 million |
| Volume linked to the wallet network | about $108 million (roughly 65%) |
| Wallets in the network | 795 |
| Share of trading since late August | 99% |
| Two wallets during the World Cup | more than $81 million in transactions |
| Reported price of the FIFA partnership | more than $150 million |
How prediction markets differ from sportsbooks
On a traditional sportsbook, customers bet against the operator, which sets the odds and takes the other side of every wager. A prediction market works more like an exchange: users buy and sell contracts on the outcome of an event with one another, and the price of each contract moves with supply and demand. The platform usually earns its money from fees on each trade rather than from customers losing their bets.
That model makes trading volume a key measure of success. High volume suggests deep liquidity, tighter prices and an active community of users — all things that attract new customers and commercial partners. It is also why volume figures on a new platform come under close scrutiny, and why the source of that volume matters so much.
What is wash trading?
The pattern raises the possibility of wash trading: a practice in which linked or coordinated accounts repeatedly buy and sell to one another to create the impression of a busier, more liquid market than really exists. Inflated volume can make a new exchange look more successful and more trustworthy to customers, partners and investors.
Important: the analysis does not prove deliberate manipulation, and it does not establish who owns or controls the wallets. Gibraltar’s regulator has so far found no breach of its rules.
Gibraltar regulator: no breach found so far
ADI Predictstreet holds a gambling licence in Gibraltar, granted just days before its FIFA deal was announced in what officials described as record time. The territory’s gambling commissioner, Andrew Lyman, said a preliminary review had found no breach of local rules against self-trading. He also said regulators had found no harm to consumers.
ADI Predictstreet did not respond to requests for comment.
A $150 million World Cup bet
The company has been under scrutiny for months. It drew attention in April when it reportedly paid more than $150 million to become the “Official Prediction Market Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026” — before its platform was even operational. Its backing has also been questioned because of reported links to International Holding Company (IHC), a conglomerate chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a senior Abu Dhabi royal and the UAE’s national security adviser. IHC has denied that it controls Predictstreet.
The platform launched in April with the stated aim of bringing prediction markets to major sporting events. In June it rolled out a soccer-focused product combining historical FIFA data, live match information and interactive predictions, and it announced a partnership with US prediction market operator Kalshi to expand its World Cup offering. A separate deal with streaming platform DAZN was designed to bring live predictions and changing odds directly into sports broadcasts.
Timeline
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| April 2026 | Licensed in Gibraltar days before being named FIFA’s Official Prediction Market Partner; platform launches |
| June 2026 | Launches a soccer-focused service for the World Cup; partnership with Kalshi announced |
| July 2026 | World Cup: two wallets process more than $81 million in trades |
| Late August 2026 | The 795-wallet network accounts for 99% of activity |
| October 2026 | Blockchain analysis made public; Gibraltar’s preliminary review finds no breach |
Questions for FIFA
When the partnership was announced, FIFA promised integrity safeguards, including real-time monitoring of suspicious trading and proactive information-sharing about potential threats to the integrity of its competitions. It is not yet clear whether those systems flagged the patterns that the Harvard students found using public data.
That matters because the World Cup was a breakthrough moment for prediction markets. Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket saw betting on the tournament run into the billions, and one industry analysis found that World Cup broadcasts averaged almost one prediction market logo per minute. The momentum has continued since: prediction markets recently recorded their first $11 billion weekend. A partner whose volume turns out to be largely internal would sit awkwardly with FIFA’s promise of a well-policed market.
What it means
- For ADI Predictstreet: the findings put a dent in its claim to be a major new venue for sports predictions, and raise doubts about how many independent users it has attracted.
- For FIFA: pressure is likely to grow on how it vetted and monitors its official partner.
- For regulators: the case shows how public blockchain data allows outsiders to test volume claims that would be hard to check on traditional platforms.
- For players: headline trading volumes are not always a reliable sign of a busy, liquid market, especially on new platforms.
Blockchain analysis suggests that most of the volume on FIFA’s official prediction market partner came from a closed network of wallets apparently tied to the company. The evidence points to possible wash trading but does not prove it, and Gibraltar’s regulator has found no breach so far. For a platform that paid a reported $150 million for World Cup exposure, the questions are unlikely to go away soon.
