Polymarket bettors set to lose Eigen airdrop wager by one minute over time zone technicality

Polymarket bettors taking the “Yes” side on the EIGEN airdrop saw their fortunes quickly reverse, after the Eigenlayer Foundation posted on X that the token unlock would take place on Sept. 30th at 9 p.m. Pacific Time—exactly one minute after the prediction’s predetermined settlement time of 8:59 p.m. Pacific Time (11:59 p.m. Eastern Time).

Before the announcement on X, previous social media posts and documentation from the Eigenlayer Foundation pointed to a Sept 30th unlock, resulting in the “Yes” side of the Polymarket bet reaching a comfortable high of 97%. The posts leading up to the September 30th unlock did not, however, indicate a time zone, while the Polymarket resolution specified the Eastern Time zone. As a result, even though the EIGEN token unlock should happen according to plan on September 30th, it will already be one minute into October 1st, according to Eastern Time, meaning the “No” side is likely to win the bet.

The “Yes” side rapidly tumbled all the way down to 3% following the revelation of the exact time of the unlock.

The resolution of the Polymarket prediction was also updated in June to specify that the airdropped tokens must be unlocked and transferable for the market to resolve as “Yes,” while an airdrop where tokens remained locked would resolve as “No.” Due to these caveats, it now appears the “No” side will win the market, despite the fact an airdrop has taken place. The market accumulated just under $500,000 in volume.

Binance will open trading for the Eigen token one hour after the transferability restrictions are lifted. Pre-market trading platform Hyperliquid values derivatives of the EIGEN token at roughly $4.10 at the time of publication, a valuation that gives EIGEN a market capitalization of around $6.8 billion. For those with currently staked tokens, a 7-day withdrawal period is required to unstake their EIGEN.

EigenLayer is a platform that allows users to deposit and stake ether — aiming to allocate those funds to secure third-party networks or actively validated services. The platform's total supply of 1.67 billion native tokens is expected to be used within a crypto-economic security system called inter-subjective forking.

While Eigenlayer has seen significant growth in the first half of the year, it experienced a nearly 50% decline in its total value locked (TVL) since its peak in June.