Remember that period of extreme tension between the US and Iran back in February? Well, predictive markets tried to estimate the likelihood of an imminent conflict in a pretty interesting way.

At the time, Polymarket priced in a 69% chance of a U.S. attack before the end of March. It sounded like science fiction, but it was real — the Ford aircraft carrier was already positioned in Israel, and negotiations were completely stalled.

The main point of disagreement was basically this: Trump demanded that Iran stop enriching uranium and explicitly state it would not develop nuclear weapons. Iran, in turn, argued that it had legitimate rights and would not give them up. A classic diplomatic deadlock where no one yields.

What caught my attention most at the time was how to resolve the probability of something so uncertain. Predictive markets essentially use information aggregation — people put money where they believe the outcome will happen. If 69% of bets indicated conflict, it meant a lot of people were genuinely worried.

Trump had said he preferred to resolve things peacefully but also made it clear that it was a difficult decision. Meanwhile, Iranian armed forces promised a destructive response to any aggressive action. The tension was palpable.

Eventually, as we now know, things didn’t escalate into full-blown conflict — but the market tried to resolve that uncertainty in the best way possible, using the collective wisdom of thousands of bettors. It’s interesting how probabilities in geopolitical events reflect both analysis and pure market sentiment.