Polymarket Freezes $345M Iran Bet Over One Word: 'Permanent'

Polymarket has more than $345 million in trades frozen over a single word, after traders split on whether the new US-Iran deal counts as permanent peace.

Polymarket Contract Splits Over Wording

The contract pays out only if any agreement states that hostilities have ended or will permanently cease. Both governments announced an interim deal over the weekend to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend their ceasefire for 60 days. Temporary truces do not satisfy the rules, which is where the fight began.

On Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the pact as an "immediate and permanent termination of military operations." Yet the published terms read like a 60-day framework, with a memorandum still set for signing in Switzerland on Friday.

A proposal to resolve the market to "yes" landed Sunday night. Holders of UMA (UMA), the token used to arbitrate contested outcomes, quickly challenged it. They now weigh the evidence in a Discord chatroom before a vote expected later this week.

Also Read: Kraken Launches 5X Perps On OpenAI And Anthropic Pre-IPO

UMA Whales Decide the Payout

An analysis of more than 6,400 voting addresses found that just nine wallets control roughly half of UMA's voting power. Those holders stay anonymous, and they have sided with the winning outcome in nearly every dispute.

The setup creates an obvious conflict. Large bettors can wager on a result and then vote to push it through, since dissenters lose part of their staked tokens. "No serious investor will put money there as long as there's no transparency," warned Jan Czarnocki of prediction-market startup Elastics.

Polymarket's reliance on this mechanism has drawn heat all year. Nearly 2,000 contracts went to dispute votes over the past year, and April alone settled 230 of them worth more than $1 billion, even as the platform's operator paused promised reforms.

Read Next: CFTC Hires Blockchain Forensics Specialist As Chief Data Innovation Officer