What is it like to earn 8,300 times on Polymarket with $12?

Writing by: Mahe, Foresight News

The place to acquire wealth through trading has long ceased to be limited to exchanges and DEXs. Imagine opening the Polymarket page, sitting in front of your computer, staring at the Bitcoin price chart. On the screen, the Polymarket platform interface flickers with an orange Bitcoin icon, and you bet your entire net worth—just $12—on Bitcoin rising within a certain time frame. The market odds are highly uncertain, but based on your analysis of on-chain data, news updates, and candlestick patterns, a few hours later, the market settles, and you win, doubling your account balance to $24.31. But this is just the beginning. You take a deep breath, continue to bet all-in on the next round, and again win, increasing your balance to $40.35. With repeated all-in operations, you accumulate victories like a snowball rolling downhill.

Starting from just a few tens of dollars, then going all-in and winning repeatedly, eventually earning over $100,000. This is not a dream, but a brilliant move by the account @ascetic0x.

Ascetic’s wealth story quickly went viral, with 4.21 million views, 13,000 likes, and 8,000 bookmarks. In the comments, some exclaimed “legend,” while others sighed, “Only Polymarket can let retail investors turn the tables.”

Perhaps, in every Polymarket player’s heart, there has been a dream of small capital making a big fortune quickly. Ascetic’s wealth story acts like a shot of adrenaline, giving every player hoping to “defy the odds” endless hope.

But the truth behind the story is far from glamorous.

Just one day after his highlight tweet, Twitter user Moses posted to reveal the truth, creating multiple Polymarket accounts and then showcasing the most successful operation.

Moses questioned: “Why does his first post show a $3,000 balance? The answer is simple: he’s running a large-scale witch account operation. He didn’t start with $12; instead, he maintained hundreds of accounts, each initially funded with $10–$20. When one account grew to $2,900, he immediately started posting. Since then, he made a total of 7 trades, all winning. But notice, each time he went all-in with his entire balance. No real trader would play like that.”

Moses criticized him for chasing traffic and seeking attention, willing to do anything to gain fame. Ascetic even appears to have used other small accounts to wash-trade his last transaction, forcibly filling his order at his desired price because normal order placement couldn’t get enough volume. Moses warned everyone not to blindly trust these so-called “big V influencers,” and to do their own research before believing.

He also posted some failed witch accounts of ascetic, which only reached at most $1,000 before collapsing.

These accounts were created 7 months ago, initially linked to random markets, maintained for 5 months, then two months ago, all started short-term Bitcoin trading with full positions simultaneously.

Some accounts quickly lost all their funds, others reached hundreds or nearly $1,000, but only one “survived” to $2,900 and was made public.

This approach is very similar to some crypto market analysts who open both long and short positions, trade multiple accounts, and regardless of market ups and downs, always manage to screenshot profitable trades, gaining traffic and attention amid exclamations of “Wow, so crazy.”

Controversy quickly escalated.

On January 18, after facing overwhelming accusations, ascetic responded with another tweet, saying: “In the past 24 hours, I’ve received more hatred and threats than ever before in my life. Some KOLs, to ride the hype and boost traffic, deliberately spread false information about me, organizing hate campaigns under my posts. Some people haven’t even looked at my profile but started criticizing me immediately, without seeing that I’ve been openly recording my trading logs on X for the past two months. They accuse me of running a bunch of small accounts, but they can’t produce any evidence of these accounts or that they ever existed. I have nothing to do with the Sybil farm; it’s pure nonsense.”

Ascetic also warned users not to follow his trades, as the strategy is extremely risky and long-term trading like this will almost certainly lead to liquidation. The reason he uses such aggressive tactics is simply because he believes he is a good trader and wants to prove his strength, aiming to establish himself in the Polymarket Trade community.

What is the truth? Perhaps it’s an unsolvable mystery, but this incident still offers profound lessons for ordinary players.

Don’t blindly follow KOLs. Others’ success is often hard to replicate, and there are no real big bosses like Guanyin Bodhisattva guiding people to get rich. In trading markets, the wealth you think is within reach often remains far away most of the time.