💰 Polymarket registers $529 million in bets on a potential bombing of Iran

In a surprising twist, the prediction market Polymarket has seen transactions totaling $529 million in contracts related to the bombing of Iran by U.S. and Israeli military forces. According to an analysis by the firm Bubblemaps SA, six newly created accounts made a profit of $1 million by correctly betting that the U.S. would attack Iran before February 28.

While these bets may reflect broader speculation about U.S. intentions in the region, Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman warned that the circulation of information about conflicts, combined with the anonymity offered by Polymarket, may incentivize informed participants to act prematurely.

In January, the analysis firm Polysights also observed an increase in bets regarding the likelihood that the now-deceased Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, would no longer be in his position by the end of March. In light of concerns that such bets could financially incentivize assassination, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour clarified that “we do not list markets directly related to death” and that they design rules to prevent people from profiting from these events.

Source: TechCrunch