Yesterday I saw something very interesting happening on Polymarket. After the US and Israel airstrikes against Iran in early March, the decentralized prediction platform exploded in volume. More than ten contracts related to the conflict were quickly created, and what caught attention was the size of the bets — we're talking about over 600 million dollars in total volume.

There are some numbers that are pretty absurd indeed. The contract about Khamenei losing his position as Supreme Leader was settled at 100% after his death was confirmed, with a single trading volume of 45 million. But what really impresses is the contract "The US will attack Iran by a certain date," launched in December — it accumulated 529 million in volume, ranking among the largest markets in the platform's history.

Probabilities also became quite dynamic. The contract about the Iranian regime falling before June 30 is at 54%, while the US invasion before March 7 is around 28%. Numbers that reflect the high uncertainty of the moment.

Now, what raised a lot of suspicion was an analysis done by Bubblemaps. Six wallets made very accurate bets that the US would attack Iran on February 28, before the attack actually happened. These guys accumulated profits of approximately 1.2 million dollars. Obviously, this raised suspicions of possible insider trading. It’s exactly this kind of thing that shows how wild these decentralized prediction markets can be.