Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) has officially blocked access to the popular crypto-based prediction platform Polymarket. The decisive enforcement action, announced by director general of digital space supervision Alexander Sabar, strictly categorizes the decentralized protocol as an illegal online gambling operation operating under the guise of a predictive forecasting market. In addition to terminating direct web traffic to the platform’s primary domains, regulators are aggressively pursuing and restricting affiliated social media accounts to prevent alternative access routes.
The swift government intervention was triggered directly by a newly introduced prediction market on May 21, which allowed global users to wager on whether Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would vacate his office ahead of schedule. Despite Prabowo’s five-year constitutional term extending securely until October 2029, the specific smart contract permitted traders to bet on his potential departure across various sequential deadlines throughout 2026. The contract rapidly accumulated more than $46,000 in trading volume, with participants pricing an 18% probability of an early exit by the end of December.
While Web3 proponents consistently maintain that algorithmic prediction markets serve as invaluable tools for decentralized data aggregation and sentiment tracking, sovereign regulators are increasingly rejecting this framing. Indonesian officials emphasized that hosting monetary wagers on highly volatile, uncertain political outcomes fundamentally violates the country’s penal code. With this latest web block, Indonesia joins an escalating international cohort of nations, including Singapore, India, and Brazil, that have actively shut down or severely restricted decentralized betting networks due to consumer protection liabilities, potential insider trading, and financial speculation risks.
