It took Polymarket lower than 24 hours to show a Center Japanese struggle into an energetic buying and selling ground.
For the reason that U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran Saturday, the prediction market has seen a flood of recent contracts masking all the things from ceasefire timelines as to if the Iranian regime will collapse by June.
The velocity and specificity of the markets is placing. Bettors aren’t simply wagering on whether or not the battle escalates, however pricing the week it ends, who replaces Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and whether or not U.S. floor forces enter Iran by March 7.
Polymarket’s largest accomplished market is “Khamenei out as Supreme Chief of Iran by March 31?” which resolved to 100% after Iranian state TV confirmed his demise on Saturday.
The contract pulled $45 million in quantity, making it one of many most-traded geopolitical markets previously week. The highest dealer, an account known as “Curseaaaaaaa,” made $757,000 on a “sure” guess. 4 different merchants every cleared six figures.
The chart on that market hovered between 25% and 50% by way of January and February as tensions constructed, then spiked vertically to 100% when affirmation got here by way of.
The most important market, nonetheless, is the “US strikes Iran by…?” contract, which has been stay since December 22 and has now pulled $529 million in whole quantity, making it one of many largest single markets Polymarket has ever hosted.
That determine makes it the biggest market in Polymarket’s “World” and “Geopolitics” classes by a large margin, and the fourth-largest within the broader “Politics” class behind solely Trump-related contracts from the 2024 election cycle.
The February 28 date alone attracted $89.6 million in buying and selling. Each each day contract from February 28 by way of early March resolved to “sure” after the strikes started, which means anybody who purchased the particular date earlier than the assault collected on a binary guess about when the U.S. army would bomb one other nation.
The market’s decision guidelines had been exact. It required drone, missile, or air strikes on Iranian soil by U.S. forces, with interceptions, cyberattacks, and floor operations not counting.
Now the buying and selling motion has shifted to what comes subsequent.
The ceasefire market provides only a 4% likelihood of a U.S.-Iran ceasefire by March 2 and 15% by March 6, however jumps to 61% by March 31 and 78% by April 30. Bettors are pricing a decision inside weeks, not months, per bitcoin’s bounce to $68,000 on the identical thesis.
“Will the Iranian regime fall by June 30?” sits at 54%, up sharply from the low-20s the place it had traded for months. The “Subsequent Supreme Chief of Iran” market provides a 30% likelihood to “place abolished” completely, which means bettors see almost a one-in-three shot that the theocratic construction itself does not survive. Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker, leads the named candidates at 21%.
The bottom invasion contracts are pulling actual quantity too. “Will the U.S. invade Iran earlier than 2027?” trades at 19% with $207,000 in quantity, whereas “US forces enter Iran by March 7” sits at 28% with $2 million traded.
What Polymarket is doing right here is one thing conventional markets structurally, and legally, can not. Fairness and oil futures do not reopen till Sunday night, however on Polymarket, anybody with a crypto pockets can take a place on Iranian regime change on a weekend and see real-time pricing from 1000’s of different members doing the identical factor.
However essentially the most placing exercise might have occurred earlier than the primary missiles landed.
Onchain analytics agency Bubblemaps on Saturday recognized six wallets that collectively netted $1.2 million in revenue by betting on a U.S. strike on Iran by February 28, the precise day the strikes occurred.
Many of the wallets had been funded inside 24 hours of the assault, guess particularly on the February 28 contract fairly than broader timeframes and bought “sure” shares hours earlier than the army operation started. The most important single pockets turned roughly $61,000 into over $493,000 in revenue. A second netted roughly $120,000 from a $30,000 place.
The platform is conscious of the optics, in the meantime.
Polymarket added a word to its Center East markets on Sunday stating that “the promise of prediction markets is to harness the knowledge of the gang to create correct, unbiased forecasts for an important occasions to society.” It went on to say that after talking with folks straight affected by the assaults, it discovered that prediction markets “may give them the solutions they wanted in methods TV information and X couldn’t.”
The positioning additionally created a complete, devoted part for Iran-focused markets.
UPDATE (March 1, 2026, 06:30 UTC): Provides further element.
UPDATE (March 1, 2026, 07:15 UTC): Provides that Polymarket bets set a brand new document for the platform.
