Quick overview

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Bettors on Polymarket, where $529 million was traded on contracts linked to the timing of the strikes, were profiting as US and Israeli bombs fell on Iran this weekend. Blockchain detectives started looking for odd trends in recent wagers almost instantly.

 

 

Six Polymarket accounts profited about $1 million by placing bets that the United States would attack Iran by February 28, per Bubblemaps SA, an analytics company.

All of the accounts were newly made in February and had only ever bet on potential US strike dates. Hours before the first explosions in Tehran were reported, some of their shares were bought, sometimes for about a dime each.

These characteristics, which are by no means definitive on their own, are what blockchain analysts identify as insider trading in prediction markets, a sector that lacks broad regulation and a consensus-based process for differentiating between luck and leaks.

The February 28 contract is by far the most popular date for a strike on the platform; by the time it was resolved on Saturday, it had drawn about $90 million in trading volume since its creation. A Jan attack contract was the next most traded item. 31, bringing in $42 million.

One of the biggest prediction market platforms, Polymarket, has grown into a vast, mostly unregulated hub for geopolitical speculation where it is getting harder to distinguish between privileged knowledge and well-informed conviction.

A request for comment from Polymarket on Saturday was not immediately answered. “Some of the first products that allow direct bets on geopolitical events are prediction markets,” stated Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman in an email.

Information about war or conflict may first circulate among a wider group of people before going public. In addition, Polymarket typically just needs a wallet to trade, which enables trading.