So in theory, if Donald Trump Jr. were to advocate on behalf of Sam Bankman-Fried, he could probably reasonably increase the chances that Bankman-Fried would get that pardon.
Junior would then be meaningfully affecting the outcomes of prediction markets related to that.
This becomes especially egregious when you remember that Junior invested in Polymarket via his venture capital firm, 1789 Capital.
Additionally, Junior is an advisor to Polymarket.
Furthermore, Junior is an advisor to Kalshi.
It used to be a norm that venture capitalists would invest in only a single firm in a niche, rather than investing in firms that compete against their investments.
Junior is a new breed of capitalist who's presumably giving valuable strategic advice to a firm that's competing directly with his investment while having connections that enable him to, "hypothetically," influence outcomes on those very same platforms.
Perhaps, you'd contend that a pardon would be too obvious, that it would draw undesirable attention to the administration, and that it would highlight the kleptocratic governance of this crypto-fascistic administration.
But pardons aren't the only markets; there are others where you could maintain a higher degree of plausible deniability.
For example, there's a market for whether or not Trump will say "Tariff King" in February, a phrase that it would be reasonably easy to introduce to the president.
The president has already been willing to share anti-democratic images of himself photoshopped or AI-generated to look like a king, so it would be easy enough to make one of those images, print it out, share it with the president, and tell him that people are calling him the "Tariff King."
Trump, in his general tendency to act as a parrot, repeating whatever depraved thing was said to him in his last meeting, will likely repeat that phrase at some point, and suddenly you've won that market.
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