Newly-made Polymarket accounts won massively on US-Iran ceasefire bets

A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific and well-timed bets on whether the US and Iran would reach a ceasefire on 7 April, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for these new users.

The bets were made hours before a two-week ceasefire was announced on Tuesday, even though US President Donald Trump's rhetoric had escalated sharply and there were few signals that a ceasefire deal was imminent.

Earlier in the day, Trump had issued a warning on social media that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran did not meet his demand to open the Strait of Hormuz by his 8 pm Eastern Time (2 am CET) deadline.

This is the latest in a series of episodes evolving prediction markets that have raised suspicions over potential insider trading from members of the Trump administration or other US government employees.

An analysis of publicly available blockchain data from Polymarket, using the crypto analytics platform Dune, shows that at least 50 accounts placed substantial "Yes" bets right before Trump announced the ceasefire in a Truth Social post at around 06:30 pm Eastern Time (00:30 am CET).

The wagers were the first bets ever made by these new wallets.

One of the accounts, created on the same day, placed roughly $72,000 (€61,600) in bets at an average price of $0.088. The buy-in for each betting event ranges from $0 to $1 each, reflecting a 0% to 100% chance of what users think could happen.

This Polymarket user then cashed out for a profit of $200,000 (€171,200). Another wallet, which joined the platform the day before, won over $125,500 (€107,400).

A third wallet, created just twelve minutes before Trump's post, placed $31,908 (€27,315) of "Yes" bets at around $0.33 and is estimated to have earned a profit of $48,500 (€41,520).

The higher price for "Yes" at that time reflected the pricing in of reports about the efforts late on Tuesday by the government of Pakistan to get Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks.

It is also possible that these Polymarket users placed their bets expecting Trump to back down, given he has frequently made bold threats only to retreat, a phenomenon his critics have derided as "Trump Always Chickens Out" or TACO.

Bet settling and user identification

While some users reaped handsome profits, others must wait for payouts as Polymarket has labeled the 7 April Iran-US ceasefire contract as "disputed," given that Iran was still placing restrictions on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and missile attacks in the region continued

Public blockchain data cannot identify who controls the new wallets. Polymarket uses proxy smart contract wallets, meaning a single user can create multiple accounts.