Suspected Insiders Reportedly Made Nearly £780K Betting on a US Strike on Iran With Wallets Funded in the Last 24Hours

Six freshly created crypto wallets collectively pocketed nearly £780,000 ($989,000) on Polymarket by betting, with precision, that the United States would bomb Iran on Feb. 28, 2026.

Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps flagged the accounts on Saturday after identifying a pattern it described as 'suspected insider trading.' Most of the wallets were created in February and had virtually no prior trading history beyond this single contract.

All six placed 'yes' shares on the market titled 'U.S. strikes Iran by February 28, 2026?' — and all six purchased those shares hours before explosions were first reported in Tehran. The contract's implied probability was sitting below 20 cents per share when the positions were opened; by the time President Donald Trump confirmed what his Department of War had dubbed 'Operation Epic Fury,' every share had resolved at £0.80 ($1.00).

The Trades That Raised the Alarm

The largest wallet in the cluster, identified only by its on-chain address, purchased 560,680 'yes' shares at approximately 10.8 cents each, investing roughly £48,000 ($61,000) and walking away with a net profit of £392,000 ($494,375) after the market resolved. A second wallet bought nearly 150,000 shares at 20 cents; a £24,000 ($30,000) position that generated a six-figure return. A sixth account, listed only as 'Anon' on the platform, made a single wager: 55,556 'yes' shares at 18 cents, earning £36,000 ($45,556), a 456 per cent return on a single bet.

By the time Bubblemaps published a visual cluster map on X showing the six wallets funded through similar on-chain paths, all six positions showed £0 remaining, each had fully exited.

Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman confirmed the firm's reasoning to The Block in a statement: 'It's almost impossible to be 100% certain in these cases, but given the size of the bets, the freshly funded wallets, and the timing around the bets, it felt convincing enough for us to share.'

Vaiman added in a separate remark, reported by Bloomberg, that 'in cases involving war or conflict, information can circulate within a broader circle before becoming public', and that Polymarket's wallet-only requirement for account creation 'can create incentives for informed participants to act early.'

The six wallets are, as yet, unidentified. No government agency has publicly named any suspect, and no formal investigation has been announced. All allegations remain precisely that.

A Platform Built for This Moment — and Its Consequences

Polymarket's 'US strikes Iran by...' family of contracts has been live since Dec. 22, 2025, generating more than £419 million ($529 million) in total trading volume across all strike-date variants, making it among the largest single geopolitical markets the platform has ever hosted.

The Feb. 28 contract alone attracted roughly £71 million ($90 million). For context, that is more than three times the trading volume of the platform's entire 2022 US midterm election markets combined. Once the strikes were confirmed, Polymarket rapidly built out an entire Iran-focused section, spinning up contracts on ceasefire dates, regime change, and potential US ground troop deployment.

A market on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leaving power by March 31, drew £35.7 million ($45 million) in volume, and paid out after Iranian state television confirmed his death on Saturday.

Not every trader won. An account identified by Lookonchain as 'anoin123' had accumulated more than £1.6 million ($2 million) in prior months by repeatedly betting against US strikes. When the strikes materialised, that account lost £5.2 million ($6.5 million) in a single day, swinging from a £1.6 million ($2 million) profit to a £3.6 million ($4.5 million) loss.

Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan has, on previous occasions, defended informed traders on the platform, telling CBS News that insiders 'having an edge on the market is a good thing' because it accelerates price discovery.

This Has Happened Before

Saturday's episode is the third suspected insider-trading incident on Polymarket tied to a Trump-era military operation in under two months. In January, a brand-new account wagered roughly £25,600 ($32,000) on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's removal from office at around 7 cents per share, a market where implied probability sat in the low single digits.

Within 24 hours of the US raid on Fort Tiuna, the position had resolved at £1 ($1) per share, generating more than £317,000 ($400,000) in profit. 'The market for Maduro's removal began climbing shortly before 10 pm ET Friday, hours before Trump's announcement,' the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The identity of the account holder has never been publicly confirmed. Speculation about a connection to Trump adviser Steve Witkoff spread widely on social media, but a representative for World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-founded by Witkoff and members of the Trump family, told Front Office Sports there was 'not even a shred of truth' to the claim.

Earlier this month, Israeli prosecutors went further than suspicion: they filed formal indictments against an Israeli Defence Forces reservist and a civilian, alleging the pair used classified military intelligence to trade on Polymarket contracts tied to Israel's June 2025 strike on Iran during the Twelve-Day War.

The two face charges of severe security offences, bribery, and obstruction of justice, marking the first known criminal prosecution arising from alleged prediction market insider trading linked to a classified military operation.

What began as a niche instrument for forecasting elections has become, in the space of 18 months, a real-money intelligence market for geopolitical risk; one that moves faster than television, charges no editorial gatekeepers, and, as this weekend made clear, rewards whoever knows what is coming next.

The question of who knew is no longer hypothetical.