Twice profiting 450% from US-Iran tensions, niche Middle East expert bets again on policy shift

According to PolyBeats monitoring, on the prediction market Polymarket, an X account named SlotinCap with only 411 followers achieved a PnL of +$522.3k by trading across 24 markets. In the two events "Whether the US and Iran will reach a reconciliation" and "Whether the US and Iran will hold peace talks," SlotinCap invested a total of $146.6k and made a profit of $518k, with a total ROI of approximately 353.4%. Before the US-Iran peace talks, SlotinCap publicly shared its buying rationale on X, believing that Iranian officials being allowed entry into the US and the leaders of the six Gulf states all being in New York made peace talk contacts in line with expectations.

In the market "Will the US announce the end of its naval blockade of Iran before October 15?" SlotinCap bought $95.8k on "Yes" at a purchase probability of 12.94%. In the peace agreement category, it made a total of 3 trades in the 5%–20% entry price range, with a win rate of 67%, PnL +$201.3k, and this investment was 10.12 times its median investment.

Iran previously proposed that if the US lifts the naval blockade, releases frozen assets, and waives oil sanctions, Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within a week. The US has already returned a counterproposal through mediators, and as of October 7, Qatar is still waiting for Iran's response. SlotinCap stated on X that it believes the probability of "Yes" is underestimated and should be around 25%.

However, compared with before the UN General Assembly in September, the current situation is clearly more unfavorable. On October 7, Axios reported that US-Iran negotiations have not yet made progress, and the Pentagon has asked Central Command to complete preparations for resuming major military operations against Iran; the US counterproposal continues to demand that Iran make substantive concessions on the nuclear issue, while Iran still regards the right to uranium enrichment as a red line. On October 5, the US Treasury also continued to warn foreign financial institutions to stop dealings with Iran's financial system, indicating that Washington is still escalating economic pressure rather than publicly laying the groundwork for lifting the blockade.