Strait of Hormuz traffic is one of the most-watched geopolitical contracts on Polymarket, with more than $16M in cumulative volume riding on a single threshold: whether IMF Portwatch records a 7-day moving average of at least 60 transit calls before July 31, 2026. The No side is the heavy chalk. The live board above carries the current Yes and No prices; this page explains how the trigger works and what would flip it.
The Strait of Hormuz traffic market turns a geopolitical question into a single number. It resolves on whether IMF Portwatch, the shipping tracker run by the International Monetary Fund, publishes a 7-day moving average of at least 60 daily transit calls for the strait at any point before July 31, 2026. Clear 60 once and the contract settles Yes. Never touch it and No collects. With more than $16M in cumulative Polymarket volume, the board has become a clean proxy for how quickly traders expect shipping through the world's most important oil chokepoint to normalize.
The contract is a one-sided threshold bet, and the market has treated it that way. The No side sits as the dominant favorite on the live board above, which means traders are pricing a near-certainty that the IMF Portwatch series does not reach a normal 7-day average of 60 transit calls before the deadline. A return to normal, as the market defines it, is a specific bar: 60 arrivals per day averaged over a week, counting container, dry bulk, roll-on/roll-off, general cargo, and tanker ships together.
The title framing, a return to normal, tells you the starting point. Traffic through the strait is running below that baseline, and the market does not expect it to climb back before July ends. That read sits inside a broader cluster of Iran and Gulf-tension contracts, from nuclear-deal timelines to warship-transit questions, all pricing off the same regional risk. When shipping traffic is the variable, the number that matters is the Portwatch feed, not the headlines.
This is a Polymarket-only market, so there is no cross-platform spread to read here. The single book carries the entire signal, and the volume behind it, more than $16M cumulatively and hundreds of thousands of dollars turning over in a single day, is what makes the price worth watching.
The No price is not a bet that ships stop moving. It is a bet that the 7-day average stays under 60. Those are different claims. Transit calls can keep flowing at a reduced clip and still leave the contract resolving No, because the trigger is a specific throughput level, not a full closure. That distinction is why the No side can trade as heavy chalk even in weeks when the strait is open and traffic is visibly moving.
For the Yes side to hit, Portwatch needs one clean print at or above 60 anywhere in the window, and the contract settles the moment that happens. That instant-settlement design rewards a single spike, so a sharp recovery in late July is the only path to a Yes. The live board above shows how thin the market rates that outcome.
The market resolves by July 31, 2026, using IMF Portwatch transit-call data for the Strait of Hormuz. It settles Yes the moment Portwatch publishes a 7-day moving average of 60 or more for any date in the window. If the final date's data is published without that level ever being reached, it settles No. If Portwatch has not published data for July 31, 2026 within 14 calendar days after the period ends, the market resolves on whatever data exists up to that point. Data-integrity corrections are honored within a three-day window, and revisions made after the July 31 data posts are ignored.
The strait's traffic question repeats across deadlines. The Strait of Hormuz traffic by December 2026 contract runs the same threshold out to year-end, giving a longer runway for a recovery to register. For the geopolitical drivers behind the shipping numbers, the US-Iran nuclear deal odds and the US invasion of Iran market price the escalation and diplomacy paths directly. Browse the full slate of politics prediction markets for the rest of the Iran and Gulf-risk board.
This market resolves by July 31, 2026, based on IMF Portwatch transit-call data for the Strait of Hormuz. It resolves Yes if IMF Portwatch publishes 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. It settles the moment that level is published. If data for the final date is published without the 60 level ever being reached, it resolves No. If IMF Portwatch has not published data for July 31, 2026 within 14 calendar days after the period ends, the market resolves on the data published up to that point. Obvious data-integrity errors may keep the market open until the end of the third calendar day after the erroneous data is released, and revisions made after the July 31 data is published are not considered. The resolution source is the IMF Portwatch Strait of Hormuz transit-calls dataset.
As of July 15, 2026, the No side trades near 99c on Polymarket and the Yes side near 1c, meaning the market prices a near-certainty that IMF Portwatch transit calls do not reach a normal 7-day average of 60 before the deadline. The live board above shows the latest prices.
It resolves by July 31, 2026. It settles Yes the moment IMF Portwatch publishes a 7-day moving average of at least 60 transit calls for any date in the window, and No if that level is never reached.
This is a Polymarket-only market, so there is no cross-platform price to compare. All of the more than $16M in cumulative volume sits on the single Polymarket contract.
The No side, near 99c as of July 15, 2026, is a bet that the 7-day average of transit calls stays under 60, not that ships stop entirely. Traffic can keep moving at a reduced level and still leave the contract resolving No, because the trigger is a specific throughput bar.
Watch the weekly IMF Portwatch transit-call updates through late July 2026, since settlement is instant on any single 60-plus print. A sharp recovery spike in the final weeks is the only realistic path to a Yes resolution.