Polymarket Suspends Trading and Pauses Relayer Following Incident

Prediction market venue Polymarket suspended trading and paused its relayer following an operational security incident on Oct. 29, 2026 ¹. Under the current restrictions, users remain able to cancel existing orders, but the platform has blocked all incoming buy and sell transactions ¹.

The service interruption follows a report from a trader who stated that approximately $800,000 was drained from their platform account ¹. The protocol operator moved to disable core order routing and order execution functions to mitigate further potential disruption across its active markets ¹.

Platform Halts and Trading Status

The pause targets the platform's relayer layer, which manages off-chain order matching and transaction submissions to the underlying chain ¹. While order cancellation functionality remains accessible to prevent unwanted executions, participants cannot enter new positions or adjust liquidity while relayer operations stay offline ¹. The halt leaves active prediction contracts temporarily inaccessible for new volume ¹.

The incident occurs alongside broader security concerns across decentralized ecosystems, which have experienced halts during suspected vulnerabilities, such as when Initia halted its Layer 1 and rollups following a mint exploit earlier in the month. Polymarket has categorized the ongoing event under exploits as its team responds to the disruption ¹. At the time of writing, $BTC traded down 0.5% over the prior 24 hours at $80,570, while $ETH fell 1.1% to $2,325.

Platform participants face restricted market operations while the relayer remains halted ¹. Market watchers are tracking further disclosures regarding whether the $800,000 drain stemmed from compromised private credentials or a contract-level vulnerability, as well as official confirmation on the resumption of standard order processing ¹.