Polymarket marked an incident affecting its international platform resolved at 19:05 UTC on 29 October, after temporarily restricting trading. Its incident log began at 18:05, recorded an identified cause at 18:37 and moved to monitoring at 18:55. The timestamps document the platform’s reported response; they do not establish the exact moment every affected user lost or regained access.[1]
The exchange first said it had entered cancel-only mode and that relayer actions had been paused. Cancel-only is not equivalent to open execution: participants may be able to remove existing interest but cannot assume they can replace positions or enter new orders under ordinary conditions. The public notice does not establish whether each user's cancellation request succeeded.[1]
What the incident record actually establishes
| Stage | UTC on 29 October | Confirmed meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Investigating | 18:05 | Cancel-only; relayer actions pausedSource 1 |
| Identified | 18:37 | Third-party compromise identified; fix reportedSource 1 |
| Monitoring | 18:55 | Trading restart anticipatedSource 1 |
| Resolved | 19:05 | Incident formally closed in status historySource 1 |
What the company attributed to the vendor
At 18:37 UTC, Polymarket said a third-party provider had been compromised and that the issue affecting Polymarket.com had been fixed. It said it had referred the matter to law enforcement and intended to make affected people whole. Its notice did not quantify unauthorized withdrawals, identify a complete loss inventory or publish a forensic account of the attack. Reports discussing possible losses must therefore not be substituted for the company's confirmed incident facts.[1][2]
The company expected trading to resume at approximately 15:00 New York time, and the status page subsequently recorded resolution at 19:05 UTC. These are different stages: fixing the identified fault, re-enabling normal operations and marking the incident resolved are not interchangeable. The status record does not prove every affected customer's balance had already been reconciled.[1]
The broker-industry implication
Outages on an event-contract venue expose three separate dependencies: the application that displays positions, the order-entry and relayer path, and the underlying settlement mechanism. An exchange can have an operational website while its trading API is restricted. Broker integrations need to distinguish each component and suppress fresh orders when the venue is cancel-only. This is an operational inference from the announced restriction, not a claim that a specific broker integration malfunctioned.
The status log spans one hour from its first posted investigation to resolution. The remaining customer issue is reconciliation: Polymarket promised to make affected people whole but the cited update supplies neither a complete loss figure nor confirmation that all reimbursements were finished. Those outcomes need a separate follow-up.[1]
Sources & further reading
- 29 October incident history Polymarket · 29 Oct 2026 · Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Polymarket reports outage and suspends trading actions Reuters · 29 Oct 2026 · Accessed 30 Oct 2026