{"id":78375,"date":"2026-09-19T11:28:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/korean-police-traced-polymarket-users-through-the-blockchain\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T11:28:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:28:06","slug":"korean-police-traced-polymarket-users-through-the-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/korean-police-traced-polymarket-users-through-the-blockchain\/","title":{"rendered":"Korean Police Traced Polymarket Users Through the Blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"@container mb-[25px] rounded-sm overflow-clip py-0.5 pr-0.5 pl-2.5 bg-success-100\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-m overflow-clip rounded-[6px] !bg-success-10 p-3 @[420px]:p-m\">\n<h2 class=\"m-0 flex items-center gap-s text-[19px] !text-[#1c1c1c] md:text-[20px]\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"16\" height=\"10\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 10\" fill=\"none\" class=\"shrink-0 text-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M1 1.5h14\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><path d=\"M1 8.5h10\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><\/svg><span>Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"m-0 flex list-none flex-col gap-m pl-0\">\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Police booked Polymarket users months before Korea ordered the platform blocked.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">They identified individual traders by analyzing public blockchain transaction records.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Eighteen of 26 people booked have been referred to prosecutors over suspected gambling.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>The Nature of Predictions Remains Contentious<\/h2>\n<p>The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency\u2019s cyber investigation unit opened a preliminary inquiry in March and began booking suspects in May. Korea\u2019s broadcasting and communications standards body did not order domestic access to Polymarket blocked until Aug. 18. Nobody in this case is accused of circumventing that block: the conduct under investigation took place while the platform was openly reachable. Instead, they are straightforwardly charged with gambling.<\/p>\n<p>As of Sept. 15, police had booked 26 people and referred 18 to prosecutors, according to National Police Agency materials <a href=\"https:\/\/view.asiae.co.kr\/article\/2026091615180762789\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first reported by Asia Business Daily<\/a>. Those booked staked a combined $12.7 million (KRW 17.6 billion), with the largest single trader accounting for $4.1 million (KRW 5.7 billion). The investigation is continuing, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kwnews.co.kr\/article\/20260917501775\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kangwon Ilbo reported<\/a> that both the number referred and the transaction totals may grow.<\/p>\n<p>The way police tracked down its suspects has consequences beyond Korea. Polymarket runs as a non-custodial peer-to-peer market with automatic settlement, and held no real-name roster of Korean users. Police said obtaining a user list from the operator was therefore unrealistic, but that blockchain transaction records are public, so they could identify and track individual users through open-source intelligence analysis of the chain itself, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalasset.works\/news\/articleView.html?idxno=43073\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as Digital Asset reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The charge is illegal gambling under Article 246 of Korea\u2019s Criminal Act. Supreme Court precedent holds that gambling can be established even where a participant\u2019s own skill influences the result, provided chance also intervenes to any degree. Police did not identify the case, but that formulation matches a 2008 judgment in which four men were convicted of habitual gambling for playing golf for money, with the court finding that however much skill golf demands, no player can predict a hole with certainty or control where the ball comes to rest. Resemblance to derivatives investment, police said, and the absence of specific regulatory guidance do not by themselves exclude the gambling provision.<\/p>\n<p>This is the main argument across the globe when it comes to deciding what a prediction market is, and how its products should be classified. The pro-market argument is that users analyze political, economic, and social information to price the likelihood of an event, trade contracts on an order book, and can sell a position before resolution to lock in a profit or loss, contending this makes it a crypto-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitcoin.com\/get-started\/trading-and-investing\/trading-mechanics\/what-are-crypto-derivatives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">derivatives<\/a> market rather than a bet. It is a version of the same classification fight running through Europe, where <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/esma-says-eu-retail-ban-covers-many-prediction-markets-with-mica-awaiting-the-tokenized-ones\/\">ESMA concluded the EU retail ban already covers many prediction markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Kim Tae-rim, an attorney at AXIS Law, told Asia Business Daily the formal elements of the offence may well be satisfied (crypto was staked, a chance-element was present) and that Korea\u2019s personality principle makes domestic criminal law difficult to escape. The decisive question, he said, is how a court assesses the structural difference of order-book contracts that can be liquidated before expiry.<\/p>\n<p>When the block was ordered in August by the national broadcasting and communications standards body, the standards body cited a winner-take-all payoff structure on events users cannot control. Polymarket responded that it offers no Korean-language service, accepts no payments made in won, and cannot be treated as the operator of a gambling venue because it never holds user funds, but these arguments were rejected by the authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Polymarket has been blocked or pursued in a widening list of jurisdictions, primarily in Europe: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/czechia-blocks-polymarket-as-unlicensed-gambling-ordering-a-15-day-isp-shutdown\/\">Czechia ordered a 15-day ISP shutdown<\/a> in July, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/romania-blocks-300-sites-and-launches-e5m-treatment-fund-as-polymarket-ban-holds-in-court\/\">Romania\u2019s ban held up in court<\/a> in April, and the Dutch regulator <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/polymarket-gets-hit-with-487000-dutch-penalty-for-halting-service-one-day-too-late\/\">imposed a \u20ac487,000 penalty<\/a> in June. Korea\u2019s approach of targeting players is novel but isn\u2019t without precedent: Tokyo police referred ten customers of overseas online casinos who gambled with crypto in November 2024, part of a sweep in which 24 prefectural forces caught 57 of roughly 130 identified players. The stakes and the product here make it a very different proposition.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/igaming\/korean-police-traced-polymarket-users-through-the-blockchain\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways Police booked Polymarket users months before Korea ordered the platform blocked. They identified individual traders by analyzing public blockchain transaction records. Eighteen of 26 people booked have been referred to prosecutors over suspected gambling. The Nature of Predictions Remains Contentious The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency\u2019s cyber [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3947362403,"featured_media":78376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3947362403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}