Six Polymarket wallets created in February profited about $1 million after correctly betting that the United States would strike Iran before the end of February, prompting onchain investigators to flag possible insider trading, Bloomberg reported citing data from analytics firm Bubblemaps SA.
The wallets concentrated their activity on Polymarket contracts predicting the timing of a potential U.S. attack. In several instances, positions were opened only hours before explosions were first reported in Tehran; some shares were purchased for roughly $0.10, the report said. Investigators noted the pattern resembled behavior previously linked to suspected insider activity on prediction markets.
“In cases involving war or conflict, information can circulate within a broader circle before becoming public,” Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman said, adding that Polymarket’s wallet-only trading model allows high anonymity and can create incentives for informed participants to trade early.
Cointelegraph contacted Polymarket for comment but had not received a reply by publication.
Polymarket saw roughly $529 million flow into strike-related contracts during the escalation. The contract for a Feb. 28 strike drew about $90 million in volume, the largest of the dates, while a Jan. 31 contract attracted about $42 million. One of the flagged accounts had earlier lost on a different prediction before placing a larger wager that later returned more than $170,000, a detail cited to note that the trades alone do not prove wrongdoing. Public warnings from Washington about possible military action for weeks beforehand also drew speculators to the platform.
This is not the first time Polymarket users have attracted insider-trading allegations. A cluster of wallets recently earned more than $1.2 million betting on an outcome tied to an onchain investigation into DeFi platform Axiom shortly before investigator ZachXBT published findings alleging insider trading at Axiom. Last month, a Polymarket account made roughly $400,000 from a well-timed bet on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro after placing about $32,000 shortly before the news broke.
In response to recurring concerns, U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres has drafted the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, which would bar elected officials, political appointees and executive-branch employees from trading prediction contracts tied to government policy or political outcomes when they hold nonpublic information.
Polymarket has also faced regulatory actions worldwide. Authorities in several countries, including the Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, France, Italy, Romania, Poland, Singapore and Portugal, have blocked or banned the platform after classifying its event-based contracts as unlicensed online gambling rather than regulated financial trading.
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