Six Polymarket traders made nearly $1 million after agreeing to the exact United States attack on Iran by the end of February, raising suspicions of insider trading.
Citing data shared by analyst firm Bubblemaps SA, Bloomberg reported that the six wallets were all created in February and have based almost all of their activity on contracts that predict the timing of a possible US attack. In several cases, shares were being bought just hours before the explosions were reported in Tehran, with some contracts valued at around $0.10.
The timing caught the attention of onchain investigators, who said the pattern was linked to behavior previously associated with suspected insider activity in the prediction markets.
Nicholas Wyman, chief executive of Bubblemaps, said: “In situations involving war or conflict, information can be disseminated widely before being released to the public.” “Combined with the fact that Polymarket generally only requires a wallet to trade, which provides a high level of privacy, this could create an incentive for informed participants to act early,” he said.
Cointelegraph reached out to Polymarket for comment, but did not receive a response from the publication
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Polymarket Iran strike contracts to collect 529 million dollars
During the recent boom, more than $529 million in contracts related to the Polymarket strike. Just one particular contract on February 28 attracted nearly $90 million in trading volume, making it the most popular strike date among traders. A Jan. 31 scenario with about $42 million to follow.
It is worth noting that one of the accounts mentioned previously lost money on the previous forecast before placing a larger bet that later returned more than $170,000, suggesting that the trade does not prove itself wrong. Washington has also publicly warned of possible military action for weeks, drawing speculators to the platform.
There are more cases of insider trading allegations in Polymarket. This week, a small cluster of cryptographic wallets won more than 1.2 million dollars betting on a contract related to the onchain investigation on the DeFi platform Axiom, recently the investigator ZachXBT published allegations that an employee of Axiom and partners engaged in insider trading since the beginning of 2025.
Last month, a Polymarket account made nearly $400,000 from a timed bet to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The wallet had put about $32,000 into ousting Maduro shortly before the news broke, sparking insider trading concerns.
related to: Polymarket users love Meteora in betting on ZachXBT’s crypto takeover
US lawmakers are moving to ban insider trading in the futures markets
As Cointelegraph reported, US Representative Richie Torres is preparing legislation called the Financial Prediction Markets Public Integrity Act of 2026 to limit insider trading on prediction platforms. The proposal would bar elected officials, political appointees and executive branch employees from commercial contracts related to government policy or political outcomes when they have non-public information.
Meanwhile, Polymarket has faced a wave of regulatory action around the world, with several countries including the Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, France, Italy, Romania, Poland, Singapore and Portugal blocking or banning the platform after classifying its event-based contracts as unlicensed online gambling rather than financial trading.
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