Goodmorning - it’s Mads from Priced In.
Cheaper than a newspaper… and no recycling required.
It’s Thursday.
Things are moving fast.
Geopolitics, markets, headlines… all changing by the hour.
And naturally:
people are trying to trade it.
No surprise - the Iran situation is dominating prediction markets again. Every new headline gets priced instantly: strikes on US ships, escalation hitting the UAE, the US stepping in to escort vessels, and then… whispers of a peace deal. Same pattern every time - events move fast, markets move faster - and if you’re paying attention, there’s money in the gap between the two.
What is going on?
→ Hyperliquid’s first Bitcoin outcome market did ~3x the volume of Polymarket + Kalshi combined
→ full permissionless rollout coming mid-June (timed with the World Cup)
→ Simultanously, Bernstein says the move signals prediction markets are becoming institutional hedging tools → the window for arbitrage is soon closing
→ prediction markets going vertical
watches today… everything else next
→ edge comes from niche expertise
watch nerds pricing watches > general crowd
you can make money from predicting the price of Rolex, to then be able to afford Rolex
→ As Polymarket and Kalshi go institutional…
👶 we needed a children’s table. Now we have one. 👶
→ XO Market - positioning itself as the “YouTube of prediction markets” (vs. the more curated “Netflix” of Polymarket/Kalshi) - just raised $6M
→ User driven markets (anyone can create anything)
fun in theory… but a nightmare for regulators
→ without distribution + liquidity, this doesn’t work
creating markets is easy
finding real money on the other side… isn’t
→ the tension is obvious
chaos drives engagement
but trust, scale, and capital require structure
XO needs both… and that’s the hard part… Now they’ve got $6m…. At least it’s going to be fun
📈💰📊 The markets I’ll be watching
We’re sort of mid-week. US/Iran is still a big question mark. Here are some of the markets I will be watching this next few days:
🇮🇷 Iran - (again) the live nerve centre of the whole market
There are now 189 active Iran markets on Polymarket alone, spanning peace deals, nuclear agreements, Strait of Hormuz normalisation, oil prices, Iranian leadership, and regional spillover into Lebanon and the UAE.
In brief this is what has happened….
→ May 5–7 = peak volatility
Axios reports a near deal → one-page framework, sanctions lifted, nuclear freeze
market spikes on “this might actually happen”
→ then reality pushes back
Iran downplays it, calls it “wishful thinking”
Israel caught off guard → potential spoiler
suddenly the deal looks fragile again
→ and in the middle of it all… Trump
“very possible we’ll make a deal”
and hours later: “we’ll bomb them if not”
same day, opposite signals → market whiplash
→ takeaway
this is a market trying to price three narratives at once:
progress, denial, escalation
and every headline picks a different one
how the markets are reacting
→ US-Iran permanent peace deal by December 31: currently 70–74% Yes - the highest it's been since the ceasefire. The Axios one-page memo report pushed it up sharply yesterday.
→Strait of Hormuz normalisation by May 31: still only 33% - the market's way of saying even if a peace declaration happens, physical shipping normalisation is a separate and harder problem.
🧑⚖️ Will Elon win his case against OpenAI?
→ Not just interesting because of the content and personalities - prediction markets are entering litigation cases
→ this isn’t about AI drama - it’s a legal structure question
did OpenAI start as a charitable trust… and did they break it later?
→ everything else (tweets, narratives, Musk vs Altman) = noise
the case turns on one boring, technical detail
→ key edge most people miss:
the jury is advisory
the judge makes the final call
so you’re not betting on 12 people… you’re betting on one
🔴 WHAT COULD FLIP IT AGAINST MUSK
→ no written agreement = weak foundation
Musk admitted there was no formal structure behind the $38M donation
that makes the whole “charitable trust” argument much harder to prove
→ his own history contradicts him
he pushed for a for-profit arm as early as 2015
so the “they surprised me” narrative doesn’t really hold
→ credibility hit in court
xAI using OpenAI models while suing them
that undercuts the moral argument in a big way
→ judge matters more than jury
she’s already pushed back on his framing
and she makes the final call - that’s the real variable
🟢 WHAT COULD FLIP IT FOR ELON MUSK
→ Brockman is the swing witness
he was in the room for everything
if his story slips… or documents contradict him
the case can shift quickly
→ “no contract” doesn’t kill Musk’s case
California recognises implied charitable trusts
if expectations were set, that can be enough
→ OpenAI’s structure is a real pressure point
nonprofit technically in control…
but all the value sits in the for-profit arm
if control is more illusion than reality, Musk has an angle
→ outcome vs impact are two different things
OpenAI keeps raising at huge valuations
but the trial is surfacing internal mess
and that alone might be a win for Musk
Trial and development
→ the live market runs for as long as the trial goes on
→ probability for Elon win started ~60% on leaks → dropped to mid-30s when fraud claims got stripped → back to ~50% at trial start → down to 36% after Musk testimony → now ~43% as focus shifts to OpenAI
→ every move tied to one thing: a ruling or a witness
no slow drift, just sharp repricing
→ this is what prediction markets are built for
dense information, fast updates, price = reaction in real time
You can STILL get your hands on the very free Priced In beginners guide to Prediction Markets here
What the internet is talking about
