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Will Iran experience a total internet blackout by 31 December 2026?

Resolution: Updated:

In short

The market treats a full Iranian internet blackout before year-end as a real but secondary possibility, not the base case. That reading rests heavily on Iran's own recent record โ€” it has done this twice in the last seven years โ€” set against the fact that no active trigger is currently underway. A fresh domestic crackdown, a flare-up with Israel, or a currency-driven protest wave are the kinds of events that would move this quickly toward settlement.

Editorial illustration for: Will Iran experience a total internet blackout by 31 December 2026?

How the contract works

This contract settles based on Cloudflare Radar's published traffic data for Iran. It resolves to Yes if total bytes transferred into and out of the country fall to 1.0% or less of the trailing four-week maximum for at least six consecutive hourly readings, with the first such reading occurring on or before 31 December 2026, 11:59 PM UTC. If that threshold is never hit, or is hit only briefly without sustaining for six straight hours, it resolves No. A contract on this market pays $1 if the blackout condition is met and nothing if it is not; a price of 0.30, for example, would mean the market sees roughly three chances in ten of that happening, not that the event is three-tenths likely to occur gradually. A position can be sold before the 31 December 2026 settlement date at whatever price the market is offering at that moment.
What the market thinks happens
$100
Yes28%

The event happens

Costs now
$0.28
If you put in $100
$357
No72%

The event does not happen

Costs now
$0.72
If you put in $100
$139

Probability

History starts collecting once the event is tracked

How the price has moved

The only pricing data available is the current consensus of 30% on Polymarket, where this market has traded roughly $319,000 in volume. There is no second venue to compare it against, so there is no spread to interpret, and no day-over-day or week-over-week move has been reported to explain. That single-venue, single-snapshot picture is itself the relevant fact: this is a market still finding its footing on a question with a short time horizon and a genuinely binary historical precedent โ€” Iran either has shut down fully twice in recent memory or it has not come close.

Analysis

Context

This market asks whether Iran's internet will collapse to near-zero traffic nationwide at any point before 31 December 2026, as measured by Cloudflare Radar's public traffic data for the country. Iran has a documented pattern of ordering internet shutdowns during periods of unrest or conflict: in November 2019, fuel-price protests triggered a nationwide blackout lasting roughly a week, one of the most severe disconnections any country has imposed on itself. During the Mahsa Amini protests in September 2022, authorities restricted mobile data and blocked platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp for extended periods without going fully dark. More recently, during the 12-day conflict with Israel in June 2025, monitoring groups including NetBlocks reported a near-total nationwide internet blackout lasting several days, widely read as a deliberate wartime measure to limit intelligence-gathering and coordination.
The market consensus sits at 30%, all of it concentrated on a single venue, Polymarket, with roughly $319,000 traded so far. That is a meaningful amount of capital for a single-outcome geopolitical contract, but with only one venue pricing it, there is no cross-venue spread to read for conviction โ€” the 30% figure is simply where current buyers and sellers have landed, and it can move on comparatively modest trading given the size of the market. There is no second venue against which to check this price, which is itself informative: this is a thinner, less contested market than, say, a US election contract, and single-point pricing should be read with that caveat attached. Iran's track record is the central fact shaping this number. Two full or near-full national shutdowns in seven years โ€” November 2019 and June 2025 โ€” is not a rare event in Iran's specific case, even if it would be extraordinary for most other countries. That history is almost certainly why the market sits closer to a third than to a tenth: traders are pricing in the government's demonstrated willingness to disconnect the country when it judges the political or military cost of staying connected too high. What the market is not currently pricing, absent new facts, is an active trigger. The June 2025 blackout followed a shooting war with Israel; the 2019 blackout followed a sudden fuel-price hike that set off protests within days. As of early November 2026, there is no reported equivalent crisis underway, which argues for the probability resting below the midpoint. The roughly eight-week window between now and 31 December 2026 is short, but Iran's recent shutdowns have each arrived with little advance warning, which is consistent with a price that is neither dismissive nor confident.

What moves the probability

  1. Israel-Iran tension

    Any renewed military confrontation with Israel, even short of the scale of June 2025, raises the odds sharply given that episode's precedent of a multi-day nationwide blackout. Absent such an escalation, this driver is dormant and pushes the probability down.

  2. Domestic unrest

    Iran has twice imposed shutdowns to blunt protest coordination โ€” 2019 over fuel prices, 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini. A new wave tied to currency depreciation, fuel subsidy cuts, or another flashpoint would be the most likely domestic trigger and would push the price up quickly.

  3. Nuclear and sanctions diplomacy

    Breakdown in nuclear talks or a new round of sanctions tightening could sharpen internal economic pressure, which historically has preceded unrest-driven shutdowns in Iran. This is an indirect but relevant pressure point, pushing probability up only if talks visibly deteriorate.

  4. Absence of an active crisis

    With no reported acute trigger as of early November 2026, the baseline case favors continued, if restricted, connectivity through year-end. This is the main factor holding the price below 50%.

The case for

  • A renewed military exchange with Israel on anything like the June 2025 scale would likely reproduce that episode's near-total blackout within days.
  • A sudden domestic shock โ€” a fuel or currency price move, or a security crackdown following unrest โ€” has twice before in seven years led Iranian authorities to order a full disconnection.
  • Iran's government has demonstrated operational capacity to execute a near-total shutdown quickly, meaning the lead time needed before 31 December 2026 is short, not long.
  • Six consecutive hourly readings at or below 1% of the trailing four-week maximum is a threshold Iran has cleared before, so the resolution bar is not unusually strict relative to past events.

The case against

  • No acute military or domestic crisis is reported as of early November 2026, and both of Iran's prior full shutdowns followed a clearly identifiable trigger event that is not currently present.
  • A roughly eight-week window is short for a shutdown to both start and be confirmed by six consecutive qualifying hourly readings before the deadline.
  • Partial restrictions โ€” blocking specific apps or slowing mobile data, as in 2022 โ€” would not meet the 1%-of-trailing-maximum bar and would resolve this No even amid visible unrest.
  • Iran's leadership may judge that another full shutdown carries economic and diplomatic costs it currently prefers to avoid absent a direct security threat.

What to watch

The main things to track between now and 31 December 2026 are any reported flare-up in Israel-Iran hostilities, any domestic announcement of fuel, currency, or subsidy changes that could spark protests similar to November 2019, and any reports from monitoring organizations such as NetBlocks of connectivity degradation inside Iran. Cloudflare Radar's own traffic chart for Iran is the direct source to watch, since a sustained drop toward the 1% threshold would be visible there before formal settlement.

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More about this event

Venues (1)

Resolution rules

Determined by
Cloudflare Radar (https://radar.cloudflare.com/traffic/ir)
Resolution date

Settlement uses Cloudflare Radar's published Iran traffic data (radar.cloudflare.com/traffic/ir). The market resolves Yes if total bytes transferred fall to 1.0% or less of the trailing four-week maximum for at least six consecutive hourly data points, with the first such point occurring on or before 31 December 2026, 11:59 PM UTC. If that condition is never met by the deadline, it resolves No.

Calculation methodology โ†’

Local context

English-language outlets covering the Middle East, from wire services to specialist Iran-watchers, treat government-ordered internet shutdowns as a recurring marker of how serious domestic unrest or regional conflict has become, and this market tracks that same signal in real time. For readers following US and allied policy toward Iran โ€” sanctions, nuclear diplomacy, or any military dimension involving Israel โ€” a verified blackout would be read internationally as confirmation that Tehran judges the situation serious enough to accept the economic and reputational cost of disconnecting the country.

Common questions

What exactly counts as a total internet blackout for this market?
Cloudflare Radar's measured bytes transferred for Iran must fall to 1.0% or less of the trailing four-week maximum, and stay there for at least six consecutive hourly readings, with the first such reading on or before 31 December 2026, 11:59 PM UTC. A brief dip that does not hold for six hours would not qualify.
What does the current price actually mean?
The price is the market's running estimate of how likely the blackout condition is to be met before the deadline, expressed as a probability. It is not a measure of how severe any disruption will be, only whether the strict six-hour, 1% threshold is reached at all.
What if there's a partial shutdown instead of a total one?
A partial restriction โ€” blocked apps, throttled mobile data, or regional outages that do not bring nationwide traffic down to 1% of the four-week maximum โ€” would resolve this market No, even if it is widely reported as a significant disruption.
Has Iran actually done this before?
Yes. Iran imposed a near-total nationwide shutdown during fuel-price protests in November 2019, and monitoring groups reported another near-total blackout during the 12-day conflict with Israel in June 2025. The 2022 Mahsa Amini protests saw heavy restrictions but not a confirmed full blackout of this kind.
What happens if Cloudflare's data is delayed or unclear near the deadline?
The rules specify that the first qualifying hourly reading must occur on or before 31 December 2026, 11:59 PM UTC; the six-hour confirmation window can extend past that moment as long as the first qualifying point is on time. If Cloudflare Radar's data itself is disputed or unavailable, that would be a settlement complication specific to this source.
Why is there only one venue trading this market?
At this stage, Polymarket is the only platform reporting activity on this specific question, which means there is no second price to compare it against and the market may be more sensitive to individual trades than a more widely traded contract would be.

Related events

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Open on Polymarket