TLDR
- Six newly created Polymarket wallets earned a combined $1 million by betting on a US strike against Iran before February 28, 2026.
- Most wallets were funded and active within 24 hours of the strikes, with shares bought hours before explosions were reported in Tehran.
- The largest single wallet turned a ~$61,000 bet into over $493,000 in profit.
- Analytics firm Bubblemaps flagged the accounts as “suspected insiders,” though insider trading cannot be proven with certainty.
- US Rep. Ritchie Torres is preparing legislation to bar federal officials from trading prediction market contracts tied to government policy.
Six newly created crypto wallets earned nearly $1 million on prediction market platform Polymarket by betting that the United States would strike Iran before February 28, 2026 — with most trades placed hours before the first explosions were reported in Tehran.
Someone in Pete Hegseth inner circle is leaking Department of War data for insider trading on Polymarket.
$500k in profits extracted in a single day.
This "incognito" trader knew about the US strikes on Iran in advance.
Bet was placed just a couple of hours before the strikes.… https://t.co/gglEIX2j4Z pic.twitter.com/ylZNfgUTEZ
— cvxv666 (@antpalkin) February 28, 2026
Onchain analytics firm Bubblemaps flagged the six wallets after identifying a pattern of suspicious timing. Most accounts were created and funded within 24 hours of the strikes, and all purchased “yes” shares on the Polymarket contract “US strikes Iran by February 28, 2026?”
President Donald Trump confirmed “massive and ongoing” military operations against Iran, which the Department of War named “Operation Epic Fury.” The strikes were conducted jointly with Israel.
The largest wallet in the group bought 560,680 “yes” shares at around 10.8 cents each, spending roughly $61,000. When the contract resolved, it returned over $493,000 in profit.
A second wallet, “Planktonbets,” netted $173,907 across seven predictions. It had also placed small losing bets on earlier strike dates, suggesting repeated attempts to time the exact day.
A wallet called “Dicedicedice” made a single bet and earned $119,964 — a 400% return. Another, “Neodbs,” achieved the highest percentage return of any flagged wallet at 900%, turning $9,884 into nearly $89,000.
Two more wallets, “nothingeverhappens911” and an anonymous account, earned $66,436 and $45,556 respectively. All six wallets have since exited their positions completely.
One Trader Lost Millions on the Same Day
Not everyone profited. A trader known as “anoin123” had built up over $2 million betting against strikes in prior months. Following the attacks, that account lost $6.5 million in a single day, going from a $2 million profit to a $4.5 million loss, according to onchain data firm Lookonchain.
Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman told The Block: “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, it felt convincing enough to share.”
The “US strikes Iran” family of contracts drew over $529 million in total trading volume on Polymarket since December 2025. The February 28 contract alone attracted roughly $90 million.
A Pattern of Suspected Insider Trading
This is not the first time Polymarket has faced insider trading concerns. In January, a freshly created wallet bet $32,000 on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at 7 cents per share, earning over $400,000 before the news went public.
Earlier this month, Israeli prosecutors indicted an IDF reservist and a civilian for allegedly using classified military intelligence to bet on Polymarket’s markets tied to Israel’s strike on Iran during the June 2025 Twelve-Day War. The pair reportedly earned over $150,000 combined.
Just days before the Iran strike, suspected insiders made over $1 million on a Polymarket contract tied to a blockchain investigation into crypto platform Axiom.
US Representative Ritchie Torres has introduced the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, which would bar federal officials from trading prediction market contracts tied to government policy using nonpublic information. Rival platform Kalshi has publicly endorsed the bill, with its CEO stating that regulated prediction markets are not permitted to run war markets.
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