Mike X Huang

Sr Product Manager @FanDuel. Hidden Strengths podcast. Executive Coach. Founder for

[Noah Zingler-Sternig @Nostroah]

And just like that, @Kalshi has officially turned the billion-dollar asset class into a trillion-dollar one.

[developing valhalla - h/acc @valhalla_dev]

The "OpenClaw made me $ x,000 from trading prediction markets/crypto" stories were pretty much all affiliate scams.

They're getting paid by Kalshi and Polymarket to post about and popularize automated trading via LLM bots. Both companies pay for posts that get a lot of impressions, because they make money off of raw trading volume. They bot tweets, YouTube views, etc. to get content going in the algorithms. Then tons of people are tricked into just downloading OpenClaw, handing it the keys to their wallets and letting it run, 99.99% of the time losing all of their money.

There are a handful of VC backed startups that are basically only making money off of these affiliate scams. Not "small VC's with very little following" but the biggest ones in the US. I'm not going to call them out because I do not have the budget, time or interest in fighting with legal, but if you know of the big wigs in the US VC space, especially around crypto, it's not hard to guess.

I can't pretend to know how VC money works, because my immediate next question would be "how are you going to make money for the VC's if all of your money is coming from Polymarket/Kalshi affiliate revenue" but my assumption is that you get your initial revenue from affiliate income, then you pivot to infrastructure or something reasonably stable after you get a huge wave of followers from the initial (likely botted) exposure. I have seen at least one OpenClaw startup with VC backing do this.

Once you pivot to infrastructure ("run your OpenClaw bot on my VPS infrastructure that's just DigitalOcean with a couple bash scripts") then you're making money off of people deploying OpenClaw bots on your infrastructure, then Kalshi/Polymarket make money off of those people losing all their money trading. The entire grift is wholly based off of ensuring your customers lose every dime. It's pretty shocking, unless you've been following how grifty the space has been for a while.

I'm an AI believer. I played around with OpenClaw a lot. I've built my own harness (in Rust, btw) and really believe that there's a bright future for agents. There is so much grift in the space right now that has to get shaken out for that to happen, though. Unfortunately, it's going to victimize a lot of early users first.

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@hanakoxbt This isn’t mirofish

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@askOkara gonna be every dev's worst nightmare and just say that it's never been easier for the average entrepreneur to just spin this up themselves and even take it further. marketers using claude code was the reason claude cowork was created.

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@ihtesham2005 Don’t see how this is any better than GSD

[Luke Paton @Golfpunter1]

Watching from afar this stuff is just wild. I have long held the belief that the prediction markets (lol even describing it as that) won't take off in the way people are expecting. Longer term that is. This market gives a glimpse into why.

At Betfair we had the choice to offer pretty much any market we wanted. However, there were some basic provisos.

1. It couldn't generate questionable PR.
2. It couldn't be in poor taste.
3. We had to be able to offer the mkt and be able to settle the mkt in a way that was fair to both sides of the trade. Our market rules had to be watertight. There could be nothing ambiguous. Settlement sources had to be clear.
4. We wanted markets that people would want to bet on, users would provide liquidity in and that would attract other users etc. I.e. a functioning liquid market with parties on both sides of the bet.
5. We did not want markets where the outcome would be subject to inside information, within reason.

What we see from Polymarket and Kalshi is interesting;

1. They crave the publicity of mkts that generate questionable PR. They adopt the notion that there is no such thing as bad PR.
2. They have had markets that involve things like wars. Markets involving foreign leaders like Venezuela. See number 1. No shame. Where do they draw the line? Betting on the death of someone? Any morals within the company? Public perception can change in a heartbeat.
3. They are getting themselves into a constant pickle with regards to how to offer some of these markets. They don't seem to care. It seems like they have no one to answer to. Just look at the farce with Cardi B this weekend. If it does cost them some money they aren't bothered.
4. We will come back to this point in a moment.
5. Who cares clearly.

Points number 4 and 5 are interesting in the context of the original tweet. What is really clear is that huge numbers of markets are being offered where inside information is rampant. In a normal functioning exchange market very quickly they will cease to exist. The market makers/layers just say ********* to this. I am not just going to keep getting picked off like this. They also say I am not going to keep offering liquidity in markets that you clearly don't know how to or are able to run properly. I don't want to be guessing as to how they will settle a market.

The difference with Polymarket and Kalshi is that these aren't normal exchange markets. They are markets underwritten by large liquidity providers. I have long held the belief that the following is happening. They are happy to take short term pain in order to get long term benefits. A loss leader as such. Quite normal behaviour in plenty of industries.

These liquidity providers have clearly said we don't mind taking a hit in the shorter term. Look at the bigger picture. I have no idea on the numbers but that in itself isn't important. It is more the concept. Let's say our liquidity providers are happy to lose £100m on these markets. That's clearly on the high side. However, Polymarket has seen the valuation of the company go from a valuation of $1.2bn in Jan 2025 to the current valuations of more than $12bn. That money spent to get that liquidity and PR is just a drop in the ocean relatively. Speed is of the essence. Customer numbers huge.

When you see markets operated without time delays you know the same is happening. These markets are just smoke and mirrors. I love the naivety of some of the investors in these products. Once the liquidity providers say enough is enough. Two things happen. One the markets collapse because they have no liquidity. Or two you take the players making the big money on the other side either out of the game or you monetise them differently. Think things like Premium charges/Expert fees/restrictions/commission rates.

People simply won't keep playing in markets where there is so much asymmetric information. Unless of course they are incentivised to do so. Short term great. Long term hmm. Call me a sceptic.

[sandra djajic @TakoTreba]

Just read that Starbucks lost $30B after hiring a McKinsey consultant as CEO.
Guy spent his career advising founders how to build companies, but never built one himself.

17 months later, he’s gone.
They bring in the Taco Bell CEO…
and the market cap jumps $20B overnight.

Turns out running a company is harder than advising one.

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@annatonger @Forbes Congrats! Would be happy to talk thru a new product I built that replicates executive coaching

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@benln Would love to be a part of this

[Chris @ChrissGPT]

OpenAI just killed 1,000,000,000,000,000 Startups 🤯

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@cfishman To any climate change deniers, insurance companies run algorithms that include climate change as a factor to increase your premiums and take away your coverage. Deny all you want, the greediest companies in the world know it’s real and that it could cost them money to deny it.

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

Love it

[Taylor Fritz @Taylor_Fritz97]

Someone on @LeagueOfLegends told me to go touch grass so I did

[Min Choi @minchoi]

We are cooked.

100% AI🤯 Veo 3

10 wild examples:

1. Nothing is real anymore

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@allenanalysis Women’s Day March dude your narrative cherry picking is just as bad as anyone you’re trying to demonize

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

Sentry mode exists for this very reason…it’s fine to peacefully protest but you should be punished for destroying someone else’s property. You ruined some random person’s day, not Elon’s. Makes zero sense to me.

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

A parent on Reddit is asking for legal advice after their 18-year-old daughter was caught on camera vandalizing a Tesla and Cyber Truck during a protest and is now being prosecuted.

FAFO

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

A parent on Reddit is asking for legal advice after their 18-year-old daughter was caught on camera vandalizing a Tesla and Cyber Truck during a protest and is now being prosecuted.

FAFO

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

@krakenfx had a friend reach out in case this could be a scam. do you typically have headhunters reach out on LinkedIn and start with a virtual interview via a site called https://t.co/TaSUZjKZQp?

[Mike X Huang @MikeXHuang]

Yes this is something a surprising amount of people don’t know. Gov’t spending ⬆️ means inflation ⬆️ means if you don’t have your money in assets/investments, you’re getting poorer and poorer

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

All government spending is taxation.

This point really needs to be hammered home.

Whatever is not directly taxed is taxed in the form of inflation, as the government prints more money.

Inflation is the worst tax of all, as it punishes those who are just barely making ends meet or have gathered some savings.

[MacMally 🍀 @MacMallyMMA]

Dude, get some sumo guys on an NFL offensive line. Held back Micah Parsons like he wasn’t even trying. 🤯