The Strait of Hormuz traffic July 2026 market resolved No on August 4, 2026. IMF PortWatch's 7-day average of ship transits never reached the 60 the contract required between May 11 and July 31. It peaked near 32 on June 29, after the June 17 US-Iran memorandum briefly reopened the waterway, and collapsed again after the ceasefire broke down in July. Polymarket settled the $24.3M market No.
Resolved August 4, 2026.
The Strait of Hormuz traffic July 2026 market resolved No. IMF PortWatch's 7-day moving average of transit calls through the strait never reached 60 at any point between the market's creation on May 11 and July 31, 2026. The closest it came was about 32, around June 29, during the brief reopening that followed the June 17 US-Iran memorandum. Polymarket priced Yes as high as 71% on May 25 and 63% on June 15, then down to 1% by mid-July.
The contract measured one thing: IMF PortWatch's daily count of container, dry bulk, roll-on/roll-off, general cargo and tanker ships transiting the strait, averaged over seven days. Before the war, that count ran near 79 a day across February 1 to 27, 2026. It fell from 57 on February 28 to 4 on March 2, and the daily count averaged about 3 in March, 7 in April and 4 in May.
Computed from PortWatch's daily series, the 7-day average stood near 2 when the market opened on May 11 and was still near 2 on June 14. Daily transits then climbed to 29 on June 23 and a high of 51 on June 24, lifting the 7-day average to its peak of about 32 on June 29. That was barely half of the 60 the contract needed. By July 31 the average was back near 5.
Polymarket resolved the market No at 2:19 p.m. ET on August 4, 2026, once PortWatch data covering July 31 was out. The market traded about $24.3M. Kalshi ran a comparable contract on the same PortWatch series, asking whether the average would be above 60 before August 1, 2026. It settled No on August 5 after about 5.3M contracts traded. The Kalshi rule says "above 60" where Polymarket's says "equal to or above," so the two were never paired on one board, but they reached the same answer.
The strait's traffic followed the war and the diplomacy around it, in dated steps:
The market traded the headlines harder than the ship counts. Polymarket closing prices for Yes:
| Date | Yes price | What moved it |
| May 12 (first tracked day) | 46% | Market listed May 11 |
| May 25 | 71% | Trump's "largely negotiated" claim on May 23 |
| June 11 | 27% | Iran announces a full closure |
| June 15 | 63% | Memorandum signed digitally on June 14 |
| June 26 | 48% | Daily transits peak, 7-day average still near 30 |
| July 6 | 10% | Traffic stalls in the 20s with weeks left |
| July 15 | 1% | Blockade resumes |
Twice the market priced a reopening as more likely than not, and twice the physical data never came close. Even at the late-June peak, with the 7-day average in the high 20s and low 30s, Yes traded near 48%, a price that needed traffic to roughly double within a month. The decline started before the ceasefire collapsed: Yes fell from 48% on June 26 to 10% on July 6 as daily counts stalled in the 20s, and the July 8 attacks finished it.
Polymarket's December 31 contract on the same PortWatch series and the same 60 threshold is still open, with about $14.8M traded. In the first days of October the daily transit count was still in single digits. The war's political boards remain live: the US invasion of Iran by 2027 market, the Iran regime change by 2027 market and the Reza Pahlavi to lead Iran market. Browse more politics and geopolitics markets.
This market resolved by July 31, 2026, based on IMF Portwatch transit-call data for the Strait of Hormuz. It would have resolved Yes if IMF Portwatch published a 7-day moving average of transit calls (arrivals of ships) equal to or above 60 for any date between market creation and July 31, 2026, counting container, dry bulk, roll-on/roll-off, general cargo, and tanker ships, and it would have settled the moment that level was published. Because data for the final date was published without the 60 level ever being reached, it resolved No. Had IMF Portwatch not published data for July 31, 2026 within 14 calendar days after the period ended, the market would have resolved on the data published up to that point. Obvious data-integrity errors could keep the market open until the end of the third calendar day after the erroneous data was released, and revisions made after the July 31 data was published were not considered. The resolution source was the IMF Portwatch Strait of Hormuz transit-calls dataset. Polymarket resolved the market No at 2:19 p.m. ET on August 4, 2026.
No. IMF PortWatch's 7-day average of transit calls never reached the 60 threshold between May 11 and July 31, 2026; it peaked near 32 around June 29.
Polymarket resolved it No at 2:19 p.m. ET on August 4, 2026, after PortWatch published data through July 31. Kalshi's comparable above-60-before-August-1 contract settled No on August 5.
Yes peaked at 71% on Polymarket on May 25 and hit 63% on June 15 after the US-Iran memorandum. It fell to 10% by July 6 and 1% by July 15.
The June 17 memorandum lifted traffic to only about 20 ships a day, roughly one-fifth of normal. Ship attacks and renewed strikes from July 8 and the US blockade's return on July 14 pushed it back to about five a day.
Polymarket's December 31, 2026 contract on the same PortWatch series and the same 60 threshold is still open. Daily transits were still in single digits in early October 2026.