DeFi researcher Ignas (@DefiIgnas) just served legacy media on a platter, and the timeline is loving it.

His viral post simply shares the latest Financial Times headline with the caption:

Bitcoin is a threat to democracy
Then stablecoins
Now, prediction markets is a threat to democracy by manipulating public perceptions.

Remember reading FT during the US presidential elections: Biden was totally sane and he would win, they said.

The piece in question is written by Jemima Kelly (who has a long track record of skeptical crypto coverage) argues that prediction markets give wealthy actors a “troubling opportunity to manipulate public perceptions of the outcome of political events.”

Translation from crypto-native:
“We got the election completely wrong, Polymarket got it right, and now we’re mad that people can see real-time crowd wisdom instead of our curated narrative.”

Ignas followed up with receipts — screenshots of previous FT articles that labeled Bitcoin, stablecoins, and other crypto innovations as existential threats to democracy. The pattern is now undeniable.

Crypto Twitter wasted no time. Replies poured in:

• “Their democracy is too weak if it’s threatened by everything”
• “Crypto is literally winning”
• “Fearful journalists, no surprise”
• “At this rate breathing on-chain will be labeled an attack vector too”

The irony is thick.
In 2024, while mainstream outlets and pollsters insisted the race was neck-and-neck (or even tilted toward Harris in some cases), Polymarket users had Trump at 60-70% to win for months. The market was right. The experts were not.

For meme coin and politifi traders, prediction markets aren’t a threat — they’re the single best real-time sentiment gauge on the ecosystem has ever had.

When Trump odds spiked → $TRUMP, $MAGA, $TREMP pumped.
When they dipped → $BODEN, $KAMALA dumped.

Trying to paint decentralized, transparent, financial-incentivized truth machines as “manipulative” right after they exposed how wrong traditional media narratives is peak copium.

Legacy media isn’t afraid prediction markets will manipulate voters.
They’re afraid prediction markets make their manipulation obvious.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real spectre looming over their business model.