How the contract works
A contract on this question settles at $1 if IMF PortWatch's finalized daily transit count for the Strait of Hormuz reaches 30 or more vessels on any single day before 31 July 2026, and settles at nothing if it never does. The price at any moment is simply the market's current estimate of that chance, expressed as a probability, so a contract trading at 0.30 would mean traders collectively see roughly a three-in-ten chance of a 30-ship day, not this market's actual reading. Data must be finalized, meaning confirmed once the following day's figure is published, before it can be used to settle the contract; if final data is not confirmed within the stated grace window, the market falls back on the most recently published figure. A position bought today can be sold before settlement at whatever price the market shows at that time.
Yes1%
No99%
Probability
How the price has moved
The contract was first recorded on 29 July 2026 at 100%, stayed in a 97% to 100% band briefly, then fell sharply to its current reading near 2%, where it has stayed flat over the past 24 hours. The size of that drop, from near-certainty to near-zero, is unusually large for a market open only a day or two, and most likely reflects an unrepresentative opening print being corrected by subsequent trading rather than a reaction to a specific reported event. The flat last 24 hours means the market currently sees no new information changing that view.
Analysis
Context
The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which a large share of the world's seaborne oil moves. The IMF's PortWatch project publishes daily vessel arrival and transit data for major chokepoints, including Hormuz, using satellite-derived shipping records, and that dataset has become a standard reference for tracking maritime disruption tied to Gulf tensions. This market asks a narrow, mechanical question: does the finalized daily count of container, dry bulk, roll-on/roll-off, general cargo and tanker transits reach 30 on any single day before the market's 31 July 2026 deadline. It is one of several PortWatch-linked contracts that turn a raw shipping statistic into a tradable proxy for whether traffic through the strait is surging, holding steady, or thinning out.
This market was first recorded on 29 July 2026, priced at 100%, and held in a 97% to 100% range for a short period before falling sharply to its current level near 2%. That is one of the larger repricings a short-dated geopolitics market can show: a contract that opened as if the outcome were essentially certain now trades as if it is essentially ruled out. The most likely reading is that the 100% open reflected thin, early trading rather than an informed view, and that price discovery over the following hours, visible in the 174 recorded observations, pulled the market down to a level consistent with what PortWatch's own daily figures for the tracked vessel categories typically show. The record does not point to a specific news event driving the collapse; it looks like a market correcting an unrepresentative opening print rather than reacting to a single headline. Over the last 24 hours the price has not moved at all, a flat reading that signals the market now considers the question close to settled at a low probability rather than one still being actively repriced. That stability matters because the resolution window is almost closed: the market opened 29 July and must resolve by 31 July, leaving at most one or two full days of finalized PortWatch data to produce a qualifying count. With no confirmed 30-plus day reported by the time trading stabilized, and so little runway left for one to appear and be finalized under PortWatch's confirmation rules, the low price reflects a straightforward calculation about time remaining rather than a judgment about a specific escalation scenario. Only Polymarket lists this contract, so there is no cross-venue spread to read for disagreement; all the signal comes from how this single order book has moved since listing, and it has moved in one direction, down, and then held.
What moves the probability
Time left to settlement
The market opened 29 July 2026 and must resolve by 31 July 2026, so only one or two days of finalized data can still qualify. That short runway is the single largest reason the price sits low, independent of any view on Gulf tensions.
PortWatch finalization lag
A day's count only counts once confirmed the following day, so a spike late on 30 or 31 July may not finalize in time to be used, which further shrinks the effective window and pushes the probability down.
Baseline daily transit levels
The collapse from a near-100% open to about 2% suggests the market believes PortWatch's tracked vessel categories do not typically reach 30 transits in a single day, making the threshold high relative to normal traffic.
Acute Gulf escalation risk
A sudden naval incident, tanker seizure, or blockade threat involving Iran could cause vessels to bunch or disperse abnormally on a single day, which is the main scenario that could still push a daily count over 30 before the deadline.
The case for
- A single finalized PortWatch day between now and 31 July 2026 would need to show 30 or more combined container, dry bulk, ro-ro, general cargo and tanker transits.
- Congestion, weather delays, or a convoy effect could cause vessels that would normally transit across two or three days to bunch into one.
- If the true underlying daily baseline is closer to the 30 threshold than the current 2% price implies, even a modest uptick in traffic could be enough to cross it.
The case against
- No day since the market opened on 29 July 2026 has been reported as reaching 30 transits, based on the price holding near 2% for the past 24 hours.
- The resolution deadline of 31 July 2026 leaves only one or two more days of data, and PortWatch requires next-day confirmation before a count is treated as final.
- A flat price over the last day, with 174 observations recorded overall, indicates the market sees no live catalyst likely to produce an unprecedented spike in the time remaining.
What to watch
The two remaining data points that matter are the finalized PortWatch transit counts for 30 and 31 July 2026, each confirmed the day after publication under the market's stated grace-window rule. Any sudden Gulf escalation, such as a naval confrontation, tanker seizure, or blockade threat involving Iran, is the kind of event that could cause an abnormal one-day bunching of vessel transits large enough to cross the 30 threshold before the window closes.
Trade this contract
Open on Polymarket
- gas covered
- no trading fee