A Polymarket trader known as gud.hl lost $1.2 million after betting it all on Argentina to win the 2026 World Cup.Spain eliminated Argentina 1-0 in extra time on Sunday, erasing the position completely.
Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps found that much of the initial bet on Argentina from gud.hl came from a Solana address which made $1.9 million trading $TRUMP tokens at launch.
A World Cup Wipeout
Bubblemaps reported that gud.hl bought roughly 12 million Argentina shares at an average price of 10 cents each, making the account the largest single position backing the team on Polymarket. A win would have delivered an $11.2 million payout.
Argentina beat England 2-1 in the July 15 semifinal, and the position surged, part of a broader run of prediction market World Cup wins that drew attention throughout the tournament.
The trader held the position through the final instead of cashing out. Spain, which had trailed Argentina in early prediction market odds, scored through substitute Ferran Torres in extra time. The goal sent Lionel Messi’s title defense to a bitter end and wiped out gud.hl’s stake entirely.
A $TRUMP Windfall
Bubblemaps traced the funding for gud.hl’s Argentina wager to a separate Solana wallet. That wallet flipped $TRUMP, a Solana-based memecoin tied to US President Donald Trump, shortly after its January 2025 launch and pocketed $1.9 million.
The episode fits a pattern taking shape this cycle. A lot of the buzz and hyper around memecoins has subsided, as was the case for NFTs before this. But gud.hi is an instance of traders cashing out memecoin windfalls only to roll into prediction market bets.
For gud.hl, that bet turned a six-figure crypto gain into a seven-figure loss in one tournament.
Source: BeInCrypto
