Malcolm Fraud: Spotify implicated in stream boosting by Kalshi trader

“Earrings” by bedroom pop singer Malcolm Todd became the #1 most-streamed song on Spotify earlier this week with a whopping 4.165 million streams. However, it seems that a good 500,000 of those streams were fabricated.

Kalshi trader Caleb Davies, who frequently uses prediction markets to place bets on how songs will perform on the charts, grew suspicious when “Earrings”—a song that wasn’t even listed as a betting option on Polymarket—went #1. Davies reported his suspicions to Wired, informing them that “Earrings” topping the global chart was an extreme statistical anomaly—“a roughly 1 in 77 octillion chance of happening randomly.”

As it turns out, this didn’t happen randomly. Spotify confirmed the accusations of streaming fraud and subsequently deleted the bot streams, dropping the track from #1 on their Global Daily chart to #4. A follow-up statement from the streaming giant read: “All streaming services face ever-changing stream manipulation. Spotify has best in class detection and mitigation practices for manipulated streams, and we don’t pay out associated royalties.” 

Kalshi users who placed bets on Todd’s songs have been paid out. A spokesperson for the prediction market platform said the company is “in touch with Spotify” and is investigating this controversy. In the meantime, Spotify has asked both Kalshi and Polymarket to remove any Spotify logos and signage from their websites and has stated that the streaming service has never had a partnership with either platform. As of now, there is no evidence to suggest that Todd’s team is responsible for using bots to increase the chart performance of this sleeper single from his 2024 album Sweet Boy.

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