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Astronomer CEO Andy Byron’s controversy went so viral that it sparked hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bets on prediction markets over his resignation.
On July 16, Byron was caught on digicam hugging his human sources director Kristin Cabot on a kiss cam throughout a Coldplay live performance with the 2 rapidly ducking for canopy. The footage immediately grabbed world consideration and attracted important exercise on standard prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket.
By the next day, Kalshi was pricing in a likelihood as excessive as 65% that Byron would go away as Astronomer CEO this month. On Polymarket, the chances of him resigning rose from about 30% initially to over 80% on Friday.
The tech firm introduced Bryon’s resignation Saturday afternoon, placing an finish to the hypothesis. The controversy triggered $2.4 million in whole buying and selling volumes on Kalshi and $5.3 million on Polymarket, marking one of the traded cultural occasions on prediction markets lately.
Byron’s resignation comes after Astronomer mentioned Friday that it had launched a “formal investigation” into the matter, and the CEO was positioned on administrative depart.
Recognition of prediction platforms soared within the run-up to the 2024 presidential election and so they have develop into a mainstream method to gauge the sentiment of the group on diversified topics.
One other standard energetic guess on Kalshi is whether or not Federal Reserve Jerome Powell will likely be out because the chairman this yr, which has garnered greater than $2 million in buying and selling volumes. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to fireplace Powell and criticized him for not slicing rates of interest.