Polymarket Lawsuit Over Strategy Bitcoin Market Tests Oracle Model

Traders William Wood and Thomas Bush sued Polymarket and CEO Shayne Coplan in the New York Supreme Court. The dispute centers on a market that resolved “No” despite Strategy confirming a bitcoin sale in an SEC filing. UMA token holders voted 98.6% to reject the “Yes” outcome based on a late clarification added by Polymarket. The case could set a legal precedent for how decentralized platforms draft and enforce market rules. Two Polymarket traders filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the prediction platform and its CEO Shayne Coplan in the New York Supreme Court on July 3, 2026, after a market tracking Strategy’s May bitcoin sale resolved “No” even though the company’s own SEC filing confirmed the sale took place before the deadline. Plaintiffs William Wood and Thomas Bush, represented by Burwick Law, demand the full $1-per-share payout on their “Yes” positions and accuse Polymarket of rewriting the rules after the fact. The case moves what began as a technical argument about decentralized oracles into a courtroom, where a state judge will decide whether a mid-market “clarification” amounts to a consumer breach. The 8-K arrived twelve hours too late for $53.8M in bets On June 1, 2026, Michael Saylor’s Strategy filed an SEC Form 8-K stating that the company sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31, generating $2.5 million. It was the firm’s first bitcoin sale since December 2022, and the filing presented the transaction data “as of May 31, 2026, 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.” The Polymarket contract asked whether Strategy would sell bitcoin before 11:59 PM ET on May 31. The sale cleared that bar. The public confirmation did not, arriving the following morning. Polymarket added a clarification requiring public confirmation within the window, and UMA token holders, who settle disputed markets through the protocol’s Optimistic Oracle, voted 98.6% to resolve the market as “No.” The money at stake was substantial. The market drew roughly $85 million in total volume, with more than $53.8 million in open interest on the May 31 slice alone. ItemDetailLawsuit filedJuly 3, 2026, New York Supreme CourtPlaintiffsWilliam Wood and Thomas Bush, represented by Burwick LawDefendantsPolymarket entities, CEO Shayne Coplan, CMO Matthew ModabberLegal claimsBreach of contract, bad faith, unjust enrichment, deceptive practices, false advertisingMarket size~$85M total volume, $53.8M open interest on the May 31 sliceOracle vote98.6% “No” via UMA token holders UMA voters judged the text, not the sale Polymarket does not resolve its own markets. It outsources settlement to UMA’s Optimistic Oracle, where token holders vote on how a market’s text should be interpreted, and those voters act as literalists. Their job, as UMA’s defenders frame it, is to judge what the contract language says rather than to investigate what actually happened in the world. That framing produces a defensible position.