Unusual Whales

Unusual Whales

Image: X profile avatar of @unusual_whales
handle	@unusual_whales
role	data platform, news institution
known for	options flow tools, congressional trading trackers, the NANC and KRUZ ETFs

Unusual Whales is an anonymous data institution that made options flow and congressional stock trades legible to retail, whose breaking posts and SBF interview made it a fixture of crypto Twitter as well as fintwit.

Unusual Whales is a market data platform and social media institution founded in 2020 by an anonymous developer who posts under the same name. It began by surfacing unusual options activity for retail traders and grew into a general market intelligence brand whose terse breaking posts are quoted across both financial and Crypto Twitter. The founder has given interviews, including to NPR, while remaining pseudonymous; since August 2025 the company has also had a named, public chief executive, and it describes a small team otherwise known to the public mostly by handles.

Congressional trading

The account's signature crusade is tracking stock trades disclosed by members of the United States Congress, publishing viral reports on lawmakers whose portfolios beat the market. That work fed directly into two exchange traded funds launched in February 2023 with Subversive Capital: NANC, which copies trades disclosed by Democratic lawmakers and their families, and KRUZ, which copies Republicans, named in reference to Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz respectively, per Bloomberg and Morningstar coverage. The funds turned a meme about political insider advantage into an investable product and made Unusual Whales a reference point in policy debates over congressional stock trading bans.

Crypto relevance

Though rooted in equities and options, Unusual Whales runs crypto trackers on its platform and its posts are a standing input for crypto traders, who treat congressional and institutional flow as the tradfi mirror of on chain insider hunting by accounts like Lookonchain. In December 2022 the account conducted one of the last long form interviews with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried before his arrest, grilling him about Alameda and the exchange's collapse. Its deadpan reposting of absurd market news also made it a meme institution; in the trenches its screenshots circulate the way Watcher Guru posts do, as raw material for trades and jokes alike.

Unusual Predictions

In January 2026 the platform launched Unusual Predictions, an analytics suite that scans prediction markets, including Polymarket, using data partners such as Hashdive, for outsized and potentially informed bets. The product extends the account's insider hunting brand from options flow to event markets, arriving amid an active debate over insider trading on Polymarket. For the trenches the tool matters because prediction market insider hunting became a meta of its own during 2026, and Unusual Whales now supplies tooling for that hunt in the same role it has long played for options flow.

Leadership

Matt Saincome, born 1991 in Danville, California, a San Francisco State journalism graduate, announced on X around August 26, 2025 that he had become CEO of Unusual Whales, writing "After years of being a fan, I'm happy to report I'm now CEO of Unusual Whales." Before joining, Saincome founded the punk rock satire site The Hard Times in November 2014 with 800 dollars and his brother Ed and Bill Conway; the site reached about five million monthly views by 2019 and was acquired by Project M in 2020 in a deal valuing it above 2 million dollars. An early Wall Street Bets reader and GameStop investor, he reached out to Unusual Whales' pseudonymous original founder around 2020 about a partnership and eventually became CEO himself; the platform's original founder has not been unmasked and remains pseudonymous.

Siebert Financial partnership

On August 18, 2026 Nasdaq listed brokerage Siebert Financial Corp announced a strategic partnership with Unusual Whales to launch a new series of ETFs built on its political trading and options flow data, describing Unusual Whales as having more than 5 million followers on X. Siebert's stock closed up 5.15 percent on the day of the announcement and 21.43 percent over the trailing week that followed.

Assessment

Unusual Whales occupies an unusual position: an anonymous account that regulators, journalists, and politicians all cite, and whose data products are marketed on the premise that markets are tilted toward insiders. Critics have periodically disputed the precision of third party options flow data generally, but the account's congressional reporting has proven durable and widely replicated.

References

• Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor-hub/article/what-is-unusual-whales/
• Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-15/etfs-that-track-stock-trades-of-us-congress-members-planned
• morningstar.com: https://www.morningstar.com/funds/2-etfs-that-track-congressional-stock-trades
• NPR: https://www.npr.org/2024/06/06/nx-s1-4974720/congress-stock-trades-profits
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHikzIr6Gq8
• unusualwhales.com: https://unusualwhales.com/about
• X profile of @unusual_whales: https://x.com/unusual_whales
• Finance Magnates: https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/unusual-whales-extends-insider-radar-to-prediction-markets-with-unusual-predictions/
• unusualwhales.com: https://unusualwhales.com/information/introducing-unusual-predictions
• X post by @unusual_whales: https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/2014125356211699954
• X post by @MattSaincome: https://x.com/MattSaincome/status/1960130630345441747
• memelord.blog: https://www.memelord.blog/p/the-punk-rock-comedy-capitalist
• Wikipedia, Matt Saincome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Saincome
• GlobeNewswire: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/18/3346765/0/en/unusual-whales-and-siebert-financial-announce-strategic-partnership-to-launch-new-series-of-etfs.html
• 247wallst.com: https://247wallst.com/investing/etf/2026/08/18/siebert-financial-partners-with-unusual-whales-to-launch-political-trading-etfs/