GoKawiilSeveral accounts on the online platform Polymarket laid bets on a US-Iran ceasefire over the weekend that appeared to show signs of insider knowledge, according to experts.
Eight accounts, all newly created around 21 March, bet a total of nearly $70,000 (£52,000) on there being a ceasefire. They stand to make nearly $820,000 if such a deal is reached before 31 March.
An account that made the same bet was created shortly before the US struck Iran on 28 February. It also placed a winning bet on those strikes, which raised similar questions around insider trading, and so far has bet on nothing else.
The new accounts all appear to have been created late last week, around the time when the US president, Donald Trump, appeared to first double down on war with Iran, then suggest in an after-markets Truth Social post that he was considering “winding down” military operations.
The wallets “definitely [look like] someone with some degree of inside info”, said Ben Yorke, formerly a researcher with CoinTelegraph, now building an AI trading platform called Starchild.
Polymarket accounts are anonymous, and it is extremely difficult to trace the owners of the crypto wallets that laid the bets.
But online crypto watchers and experts suggested that the bets bore the signs of insider trading – both because they bought their positions at market price, and because some of the accounts looked like they could belong to a single investor attempting to conceal their identity by splitting their bet between multiple wallets.
“Typically, when you see wallet-splitting and deliberate attempts to obfuscate identity, it’s one of two scenarios: either a very large investor trying to shield their position from market impact, or insider trading,” said Yorke.
Polymarket’s own rating of the probability of a ceasefire before 31 March increased significantly in the past few days, from 6% on 21 March to 24% by Monday. More than $21m is currently being wagered on this outcome.
Online prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi are rapidly becoming a feature of modern warfare.
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