Prediction market traders are placing long odds on a rapid resolution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, with Polymarket pricing just a 22% probability that shipping traffic through the critical waterway will return to normal by 30 April.
The market, which has attracted nearly $2 million in trading volume, has seen the probability collapse from around 80% in mid-March, reflecting the deepening of the conflict between the United States and Iran and the continued disruption to global energy supplies.
The move lower in the probability tracks a week of sharply escalating rhetoric and military activity, with Iran maintaining its blockade of the strait, through which approximately one-fifth of the world's oil supply typically passes.
Iran's parliamentary security committee chief Ebrahim Azizi has added a pointed warning to the diplomatic noise, posting on X that the strait "will certainly reopen, but not for you", addressing the comment directly at Donald Trump.
The US president, speaking in the Oval Office ahead of a scheduled national address on Wednesday, said America would "leave" Iran within two to three weeks once it was satisfied the country could not develop nuclear weapons for years, framing any diplomatic deal as secondary to that timetable.
Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian has signalled his country has the will to end the conflict if certain conditions are met, though the overnight exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran, including a strike near Tel Aviv and a tanker hit off Qatar, suggests the gap between words and a ceasefire remains wide.
A related Polymarket contract on whether the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a second critical chokepoint at the southern end of the Red Sea, will be effectively closed by 30 April is priced at 17%, suggesting traders see the disruption to global shipping as likely to persist well into next month.