Polymarket's Infrastructure Strain Shows as Platform Bugs Pile Up

Polymarket is processing record volume while a growing list of technical problems disrupts trading for users across the platform. Over the past week, community members have documented a range of failures that affect everything from portfolio displays to order execution, deposits, and API reliability. The issues arrive as the platform manages $1.7 billion in weekly volume and prepares for what analysts expect to be a busy NFL season.

The problems are not isolated. They span multiple systems and affect different user groups in different ways. Some are cosmetic. Others carry direct financial consequences.

Portfolio and Order Display Failures

Archived and deleted markets are appearing in Active Portfolio with ghost values that no longer correspond to any tradeable position. The toggle meant to hide these markets resets itself, leaving users unable to clear the display. Open orders are not showing correctly either. Orders that have been placed are invisible in the interface. Orders that have been cancelled persist on screen. The result is an order book view that does not match the actual state of the user's account.

For anyone managing multiple positions, this creates uncertainty about what is actually live and what has already been closed. That uncertainty carries a cost when markets move quickly.

Deposit Failures

Apple Pay and card deposits are not working. Users attempting to fund accounts through these methods are encountering failures that block them from trading entirely. The cause has not been publicly explained.

Volume Discrepancies

Profile trading volume is not matching leaderboard statistics. The mismatch affects how users understand their own activity relative to others on the platform. Whether this is a display error or a calculation error has not been clarified.

API and Infrastructure Problems

The API batch order endpoint is timing out. The CLOB API is blocking Gnosis Safe addresses with an error message stating that the maker address is not allowed. This blocks a category of users from accessing the platform through the API, which is the primary interface for automated trading systems.

A more serious issue involves the WebSocket price_change feed. The feed is dropping cancellation deltas silently, which causes phantom orderbook levels to appear. Because no sequence number exists in the current implementation, clients cannot detect gaps on their own. A community member posting as berth6833 confirmed this is a known issue and has requested seq_id support in the next engine update.

Order latency is also spiking. On five-minute crypto markets during volatile moves, the p99 latency is hitting 1200 milliseconds. sonderwrld shared statistics showing POST p90 at 102 milliseconds and CANCEL p90 at 68 milliseconds. Those numbers describe a system under stress at precisely the moments when speed matters most.

RTDS streams are dropping out regularly, adding another layer of instability to the data infrastructure.

Clarifications on Market Rules

Alongside the technical problems, Polymarket issued clarifications on several markets that had generated confusion.

For the US-Iran ceasefire markets dated September 4, 7, 11, 18, and 30, the rules now specify that pre-creation military actions are not qualifying events. The 14-day ceasefire window starts the day after market creation if no post-creation action has occurred.

For the Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz transit markets, the resolution source has been formally added as IMF PortWatch transit calls data. Unrounded values take precedence over rounded ones when determining outcomes.

For the AI Chatbot Arena 1520 score markets dated September 30 and December 31, Polymarket announced that order books were cleared at 7:30 PM ET on September 15, then issued a resolution clarification. On September 2, claude-fable-5.1-max displayed a score of 1523, which met the 1520 threshold. The rules impose no minimum vote count and do not disqualify scores that are later revised. Those markets are resolving YES.

The Pattern

The bugs and the clarifications describe two different aspects of the same platform at the same moment. One is the trading infrastructure, which is showing strain across multiple systems. The other is the market design process, which is responding to ambiguity in resolution rules after markets have already opened.

Both are part of operating a prediction market at scale. Neither is unusual on its own. Taken together, they describe a platform that is growing faster than its systems can comfortably absorb.

The volume numbers show no sign of slowing. The technical problems show no sign of resolving. The gap between the two is where the current risk sits for anyone trading on Polymarket with meaningful size.

The platform has not issued a public statement addressing the full list of issues. Individual community members have confirmed some problems and requested fixes. Others remain unexplained. For now, users are left to manage around the failures and wait for updates that have not yet arrived.