Overview
- Spotify said Wednesday it investigated a sudden 70% jump in plays for Malcolm Todd’s “Earrings,” removed more than 500,000 artificial streams, and adjusted its U.S. daily chart so the song fell from No. 1 to a lower position.
- A Kalshi market on June’s most‑streamed U.S. song, which drew about $3 million in trading, was settled using the published figures before Spotify completed its fraud review and winners were paid out.
- Kalshi trader Caleb Davies publicly flagged the anomaly with statistical evidence; Kalshi says it is cooperating with Spotify on an investigation and Polymarket says it did not list Todd as an option on its comparable market.
- At Spotify’s request, both Kalshi and Polymarket have been asked to remove Spotify branding and to clarify there is no official partnership, and Spotify said it withholds royalties for streams it deems artificial.
- The episode highlights a structural risk: prediction markets that pay on public, revisable data can create financial motives to manipulate measurable outcomes and have drawn renewed attention from regulators including the CFTC and lawmakers.