Astronomer CEO’s ‘kiss cam’ controversy sparked over $7 million in prediction markets bets on his ouster

Astronomer CEO Andy Byron’s controversy went so viral that it sparked tens of millions of bucks in bets on prediction markets over his departure.

On July 16, Bryon was once stuck on digital camera hugging his human sources director Kristin Cabot on a kiss cam all over a Coldplay live performance with the 2 temporarily ducking for barricade. The pictures all at once grabbed international consideration and attracted vital process on prevalent prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket.

Through please see hour, Kalshi was once pricing in a prospect as top as 65% that Byron would release as Astronomer CEO this generation. On Polymarket, the chances of him resigning rose from about 30% first of all to over 80% on Friday.

The tech corporate introduced Bryon’s departure Saturday afternoon, striking an finish to the idea. The talk brought on $2.4 million in general buying and selling volumes on Kalshi and $5.3 million on Polymarket, marking one of the crucial traded cultural occasions on prediction markets lately.

Byron’s departure comes next Astronomer mentioned Friday that it had introduced a “formal investigation” into the topic, and the CEO was once put on administrative release.

Acclaim for prediction platforms soared within the run-up to the 2024 presidential election and they’ve turn out to be a mainstream technique to gauge the sentiment of the public on numerous boxes.

Some other prevalent energetic guess on Kalshi is whether or not Federal Keep Jerome Powell might be out because the chairman this day, which has garnered greater than $2 million in buying and selling volumes. President Donald Trump has time and again threatened to fireside Powell and criticized him for now not reducing rates of interest.