Poly Marks
Poly Marks is a humorous podcast where brothers Andrew, Matt, and moderator Joel explore Polymarket’s markets, share their betting mishaps, and debate trends with sibling flair.
Poly Marks
#28. The Snake, The Strait, and The Bubble
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Episode 28 starts with a break down of Elon’s lawsuit against OpenAI and debate whether Sam Altman’s transformation from nonprofit steward to potential multi-billionaire CEO could become one of the biggest tech scandals in AI history. They discuss the odds of Elon winning, OpenAI’s IPO chances collapsing, Anthropic’s growing momentum, and whether the AI sector is quietly entering bubble territory.
From there, the conversation pivots back to the Middle East: stalled peace talks, the Strait of Hormuz still functioning under threat, oil volatility, and whether Trump actually wants a long-term deal with Iran — or just a temporary stabilization before the next escalation cycle. The crew debates permanent peace odds, oil hitting $120+, troop deployments, and whether global shipping insurers will ever fully trust the Gulf again.
They wrap with bets on Keir Starmer’s political survival, broader market instability, and the recurring Poly Marks theme: nobody really knows what happens next — but the markets are betting anyway.
No, I'm not even saying it's I'm I'm not even saying it's an interdimensional species. Or whatever.
SPEAKER_01You're saying they came from the past. You're saying there was an advanced civilization in the past.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, but are you saying this is like the Ice Age civilization, or is that what you're getting at?
SPEAKER_02Keep asking me things and then he put us and shut up. He's like, are you saying this? Are you saying that? Are you saying that? I mean I believe the I believe the Atlantis story is probably more than likely true. Really?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah. In in what sense? That there's a high there's a high-tech species that has been lost that used to be that was globe spanning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Mark's pod tech.
SPEAKER_01Uh welcome everybody to episode 28 of the Polymarks Podcast. I'm your host, Joel, here with my brothers Matt and Andrew. Kind of an exciting weekend in the week lined up. We're gonna be talking about Elon OpenAI, little Sam Altman, talking about Iran, uh talking about Starmer, and then we've got a few other updates on some of our other markets. Um this is your weekly reminder that betting on the future is easier than predicting it. So let's start it off with Elon OpenAI. Who thinks they want to give us a little recap?
SPEAKER_02I thought you were supposed to do semi-weekly when it's been two weeks, and then weekly when we it's only been one week, you know.
SPEAKER_01So kind of like I'm not very good at digesting on the fly to that, apparently. Uh that is fair. Uh yeah. Yeah, we've got to be a good one. Okay, we'll give uh we'll have a update on Iran, but we're gonna go to Elon first.
SPEAKER_02Let's start with some Elon or something a little bit lighter. We've done Iran first every week for who knows how long, lots of episodes. So um, as most people are probably aware, there's currently a large uh case going on between Elon Musk and OpenAI. For those that don't know, OpenAI is uh initially a charity that was designed to um save humanity. Save humanity. Well, I mean, it's basically the the idea that you know we're gonna have this really strong, powerful AI in the future. We want to make sure it's aligned with humanity. I'm not sure exactly how um much money Elon gave, but I think so is the tens of millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, um he's tens of millions at a at a at a entry point that would be worth billions and billions now, uh based on open AI's valuation. Yeah, he was one of the first investors.
SPEAKER_02He I mean he basically set it up, right? And then, you know, now it's moved over um to a for-profit entity, as you know, probably is ChatGPT. We've talked about it in the past. Uh, extremely popular, has basically was the first real frontier model to be, you know, a chat kind of accessible uh interface that was widely used by, I think it's one of the fastest growth charts in the history of technology. So uh now we're back to the case. Um give you kind of a quick update on what the market is. The market is currently at 41% chance that Elon Musk will win the case against Sam Altman. It's uh pretty complicated uh rules. I don't know if the lawyer in the family wants to go over all the details, but it seems from my reading, Joel. I don't know if you've checked this out, that if this in any way goes with Elon, uh he'll win. If there's any type of adjudication or settlement or whatever that goes Elon's way, it will be favored to him in the settlement. Am I wrong? You tell me if I'm wrong, Joel. I need some lawyerly advice. Joel, you're muted.
SPEAKER_01My apologies, Sarah. Yeah, I guess my uh my initial reaction just I again I haven't read through this all, but my understanding is that Elon has basically said if he wins, he just wants the money to go back to OpenAI, to the organization, right?
SPEAKER_02So Right, but he's also, I believe, asked for the removal of Sam Altman and Brock, uh, whatever, like the two main got figures, uh basically off the cap table. And yeah, but uh I think there's also potentially some monetary uh changes he's looking for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just I don't I he's not gonna get punitive damages, like he's not gonna get I don't think r restitution is even something he's seeking, right? He's not just saying, I want the you know X percent of open AI now, and I don't think the court is gonna want to make that determination, right? Like the court is just like most of this is like unjust enrichment, and and again, they may maybe maybe they do make a monetary award, but I don't see them, you know, I don't know, doing punitive damages or something like that. And again, I I I would see it more as them punishing open AI. And and again, I I don't it's hard. I get it, I don't look at all the wording, but I I just feel like I mean there's one where like will it settle? And how does that how does this one resolve in this one? It says if if uh if Elon and Altman settle, then it will have sided with Musk. So I mean that's that's there was a separate market I looked at for settling. Um so that is interesting that that would settle for a no.
SPEAKER_02So I mean I would tend to go to Yeah, that's again that that I I I did look over all the rules. I don't have them, I don't we don't have to go over the case, but basically it seems like my my read of the thing is if if this is any way goes as far as settlement, summary judgment, um anything like that, it's gonna go in Elon's favor. And you know, basically the argument is is you can't take uh you know a charitable thing and then you know, behind the scenes get all this crazy enrich enrichment off it. You know, these guys apparently I mean he went Sam Altman went in front of Congress and said I have zero shares, and now you know with IPO, he's apparently gonna get eight billion dollars if they were to IPO. So I mean um a lot of what would seem kind of shady stuff uh going on. I've been following a little bit of the transcripts. It seems it seems pretty bad. Like they have the diary. I mean, they talked about this on you know, all in podcasts. They have the diamond of the this Brockman guy basically saying, like, this is crazy. I'm not sure, I'm sure Elob's gonna be that I think we should commit this crime, but I've been very conflicted about what this is. Illegally questionable. I hope this doesn't get make it to discovery in the future, you know, that kind of stuff. And uh yeah, it doesn't look great in my mind. Uh long story short, is I like the market. I bought in around 40 cents. Uh not a huge swing, not just a nibble, a little bit more than that. Um yeah, I think there's a better than two-one chance that this goes favorably for him in some ways. Um, and so yeah, I I ended up liking the market. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts or dollars down, Andreas. Tell us what you think.
SPEAKER_00Well, you you talked about Elon wanting Altman to get removed. And if you guys remember, this would be actually the second time he potentially would have been removed. Uh because there was the previous board back when it was more of a uh a charitable organization.
SPEAKER_02And that was the charity, it was the charity board that kid that fired him from like the whatever have you listened to some of them talk about it.
SPEAKER_01Like I I've heard I I heard a bunch of stuff when this happened initially, but even more recently, I was listening to some stuff where this lady is like, we couldn't trust, we just basically decided we couldn't trust a single thing this guy was saying to us, and then he like almost like she like she didn't say this, but she was framing it as like sort of sociopathic dishonesty and manipulation, right?
SPEAKER_02Which is it's it's it's it's honestly like looking back on it. I think we all a lot, I mean. I just say this allegedly, Sam, if you're hearing this. Allegedly, as uh lawyer words. Um yeah, looking back on it, I thought it was just some weird kind of like power grab from some random charity, like blah blah blah. Like they're just like these, you know, kind of lefty weirdos that want to make sure that AI they're trying to kill his his business acumen. And now I look more at it, hearing more and kind of reading more, is like, no, no, they just thought this guy was a total snake, did not trust him for a second, and they said this guy can't be the head of a charitable organization that's supposed to further his AI, and they got everyone kind of in, and uh then he parachuted Microsoft, whatever, and figured out a way to get out of it. But like it seemed like it was legit.
SPEAKER_01He cre he sort of seemed seemed at least uh from the outside to create like a groundswell of open AI employees who were like, No, we want Sam back, essentially. And I think that really changed the public perception, but it's like who knows how much of that was real and how much of that was him. Who much of that was like yeah, that was part of him you know manipulating everybody around him, right? Well, and no one says he's not like the greatest. Because he would have been like, oh my god, guys, the board just threw me out to all like all his engineers who I'm sure were passionate about him. He would have said to all of them, like, guys, yeah, I don't know, the board, they just they said whatever we're creating is too dangerous and they wanted to stop me. I don't know why, but I was you know, and I was ready to make it all cool.
SPEAKER_02I mean, uh yeah, everyone seems to think he is the one of the greatest salesmen. I mean, he got uh one of the highest funding rounds ever, the last funding round. So they've they've done extremely well. Um and and interestingly enough, it just came out today that Elon is backing hugely with his Colossus servers, Anthropic. And so, me as an anthropic customer, like now I was getting you know kind of limited all the time, paying my 20 bucks a month, and now it's supposed to almost instantly double the amount of compute you can take on an individual level because they have this deal with Elon and you know, some speculations basically this is just another way to kind of fight open AI, right? Like, why did he make a deal with anthropic? He could have made a deal with anybody, but he wants to, it's it's if it's down to anthropic and open AI, Elon wants to kind of take them out.
SPEAKER_01You know, you don't uh kind of Well and especially especially if Anthropic is doing so well, it's like you want to you want to sort of chain yourself to the winning horse. And I don't think I'm sure it's not exclusive, right? In the future, if he wants to sell open AI or whoever else, he can, but it's like yeah, it's it's a slap in the face to Sam Altman to be latching yourself to Claude and essentially giving what might be the best model currently that even more leg up, right? Where you're not having the restrictions. Maybe they release Mythos now because they have to be.
SPEAKER_02And you know, if this court case goes bad or they really get a lot of problems, you know, with compute and raising their next round of funding, yada yada yada. You know, I do think one of the easiest ways out might just be to sell to one of the hyperscales. You could sell to Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, you know, who else, who else knows? I mean, there's definitely options, even at a crazy bit like 500 billion or plus, you know what I mean? Some of those guys could do it. So I kind of like that as far as your bet. Maybe you want to give us a little update on that, Andrew?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, we've talked about this previously. Uh, it's the AI bubble burst in 2026 market. Um, I'm in for at 20. Uh it's at 25 right now, but as of like earlier today, um it was as high as 30 almost. I think I mean there's a lot of convoluted triggers for for this market, which is why I'm not a huge fan about talking it, and it's much more of a high of a headline that I would like to trade as opposed to the actual uh market resolution, which aside from yeah, the big one, which is um open AI either being sold or going bankrupt, um, other ones are you know the uh the semiconductor iShare ETF, like if that comes down off its high, or if NVIDIA comes down, I think it's 120%, 50% off its all-time high. Yeah. There's a bunch of ones that are obviously all interrelated, and if one domino starts going, I think there's a good chance they're all gonna go. There's so much circular money. It's it's like that uh it's always sunny in uh Philadelphia episode where they're trying to to ape the the the Dave and Buster's uh business model. They're like, oh, we're just gonna introduce our own cash, and it's a circular economy, and it all goes around and around.
SPEAKER_02Well, the other the the other main thing is a a huge chunk of this money, I mean, this might lead into our next conversation. A huge chunk of this money is from uh from the Middle East, right? I mean, this is this is UAE money, this is Saudi money, this is Qatar money, like these are some of the biggest sovereign wealth funds that have been invested in a lot of these projects. And now if they need to they I mean, we just we just got live put on hold, right? So I can't I have to assume that some of these other bets that have not aren't aren't finalized, that don't have you know outcome out of their the sorry the uh opportunity to get out, like they're gonna they're gonna pull the plug. And so that's another reason why you might see some serious stagnation, you might see some serious stagnation in the funding of open AI. Um yeah, I don't know if I love the bet at 25%, but I mean, I feel like that's probab almost just the likelihood of open AI getting acquired. I mean, if you gave me two years, I would, I would, I would, I would take that market.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if we get settled this year, but I think the most likely path forward for them, if stuff gets convoluted, is that this this market, you need if we're looking at the AI bubble burst buy, which I think is what we're talking about, right? It's it's you need three of the the six things that they've listed. And you're I I don't know, I get that you guys are saying, oh, it's all circular and there is a lot of circular money, but it's like I thought it was just one of them to trigger.
SPEAKER_02It's three of the six. It's three of the six.
SPEAKER_00Three of the six within 90 days.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. You know what? I've got a long chat to me, right? So that's where I thought it was just I thought it was like the nothing never happens kind of markets. Like we're just you want to do that. No, it's like open AI Inc.
SPEAKER_01has to be acquired, or it ha you know, and then again, you have an overlap on some of these, right? Because open AI Inc. has to declare bankruptcy or be acquired. So it's like you really can't get both of those. Uh, they're gonna they would get acquired, they for sure get acquired. They're not that toxic of an asset, obviously.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it's I think it's very possible.
SPEAKER_00But we'll put it this way the the open AI IPO uh is now at 30% for the end of the year, but back in February, it was as high as 55%. You know, I think I might I think I might like the to short that.
SPEAKER_01If you're IPOing, you're neither going bankrupt nor are you like if you're setting up for an IPO or if you do the IPO, you're not angling yourself to be acquired in in the sense of being fully controlled by another corporation anytime soon, right? Am I crazy on that?
SPEAKER_00Right, but that's my point, Joel, is that open AI was setting themselves up to IPO this year, and now it's a lot less likely that it's gonna happen based on some of these issues they've been having, based on the well, especially what's anthropic to go, because again, they they've kind of talked about this limited money again.
SPEAKER_02We're talking about the Middle East, which is you know huge funders of a lot of this stuff. And so if only one's gonna go out at uh you know 500 plus billion valuation, maybe up to a trillion, you know what I mean? Plus you have SpaceX at a trillion, uh Anthropic 65 to go this year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think honestly, if I was to take one bet they're not declaring bankruptcy clearly, so it's like it doesn't bear well for this market, that's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02No, I understand that. No, no, I'm saying open AI is in a very different uh position, I believe, than anthropic. If I was to take one bet out of these AI things, it would be open AI not to uh not to go public this year.
SPEAKER_01I I like anthropic getting acquired more than open AI, and that's not even a that's not even one of the conditions on the market we're looking at. And I I just like the NVIDIA stuff or the semiconductor stuff, none of that's coming down because they don't it's like it's the models are fighting on the top layer, but at the base layer, the chip companies and whoever else are gonna be fine. I mean, yeah, not not the same. The man's not paying they can't get their helium out there. Sure, but I'm talking on a 10, 20 year scale that most of these places are looking at, not on the six to nine months we're worried about oil prices.
SPEAKER_00Right, but it's not but it's not oil prices. It's you know, they can't get the helium out of the Persian Gulf in order to make the semiconductors that they they need to do, sort of that you know, nanometer um etching that they need to do to make the really high-end stuff.
SPEAKER_01I mean, what's the price of helium? Has it gone up dramatically?
SPEAKER_00I think it has actually. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_02Um okay, let's maybe wrap up the AI talk though. Uh I do think it's interesting. Uh like I said, I like the bet for the for the case. I think I'm gonna put a nibble down on the no uh open AI bet because if you believe the case is gonna go bad at all, that's for sure gonna screw their ability to open uh IPO this year, I would guess. So I might kind of tag team those up. Um should we head into kind of sorry, go ahead, Jeff.
SPEAKER_01I was just gonna say, I like um, but there's also the situation where where this Elon case resolves in Altman's favor in terms of their like, hey, we're gonna, you know what, we're gonna slap you on the wrist, open AI, and we're gonna slap you on the wrist, everybody else. Here's a monetary damage, which I think would resolve a yes on the on the case bet that we talked about initially. But I think it's very unlikely the court will go to that extreme of saying, no, we want to wind this back, we want to make you like do an injunction or whatever else court order where we have to rewind all this insane amount of complicated bullshit that open AI has done since they sort of were actually a charity. I don't think the court's gonna want to do that just because it's too complicated and the courts aren't good at doing that kind of stuff. They're they do the we'll charge you a trillion dollars to clap you on the wrist. I think that doesn't affect OpenAI's ability to to do an IPO this year. I wouldn't be a trillion, it would be, you know, uh a few billion or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Anyways, we can move on into the market.
SPEAKER_00Whatever. So speaking of uh the Straits of Hormouth, let's get into the Middle East.
SPEAKER_01My Straits bets have all been doing pretty well recently. I've had a few wins resolved there. I've got it's still one of my best bets right now is will the straights return to normal by end of May? What are your thoughts on this stuff, guys?
SPEAKER_00I mean, my uh portfolio, I woke up this morning, it was down about 25% across the board. On the news, uh, and I my my portfolio's heavily into that market, Joel. Uh will straights traffic resume to quote unquote normal, even though you know 60 isn't really normal. Um, but I also have a lot of oil bets, and I have some will there be a permanent peace deal between the US and Iran? I've got no's on on traffic and the peace deal, and I've got the yes on on will oil actually hit some of these high prices. But overnight the word that kind of came down was that they're close to a peace deal. There's some movement from Iran. Again, we don't know who is talking. I sent you guys that one clip of Trump where he you he's talking from an audience or something, and he's like, Oh, I I it's so hard to even know who to talk to, and you know, he's some random guy, and I don't know who he is. And I think in in that moment he was being genuinely honest that like they don't know who to talk to and who actually has authority.
SPEAKER_02Iran probably doesn't want to tell you who the top top guys are because you know there's standing orders to kill those guys, so they're trying to probably you know try keep it on the low, you know, like oh yeah, I don't know, it's not me. I'll tell you, you don't want to kill me. You kill the other guy, I'm not telling you who, but you know.
SPEAKER_00Um but the the factions that seem to be emerging are the well, a the IRGC, obviously, um, who gets almost all their money from both uh legal and illegal smuggling, trading of oil, uh exporting of oil, um and the political more moderate wing uh of Iranian politicians. that aren't directly connected to the Revolutionary Guard. But who the the Trump administration is talking to, who they're making this supposed deal with, uh is very difficult for anybody to know. Uh never mind us. Uh and I I was just reading as I came on today that Trump's plan to reopen the Straits, which uh it's funny because they're calling it a new uh mission. Uh this is you know Project Freedom or something like that. And then they're very them and Hegzith and Ruby are all being very clear and very specific that Epic Fury is over. And that way sort of lets them get around the War Powers Act because they have 60 days before Congress has to sign off on anything. And if they restart that mission then Congress has a say but if they claim that no this is a different mission that we're we're we're trying to do in the Gulf now they get around having to go through Congress in the War Powers Act. I don't know. I I'm still very dubious I do not think the IRGC is gonna be willing to give up the the only means of making money now that the they don't have any chance to get their oil out. And I don't know like I I'm not sure I ever talked about this in the pod, but I I lived in Albania for for for years. And Albania was one of the craziest countries uh definitely the craziest country in Europe uh when it came to communism and sort of being you know an insular uh kind of it was the North Korea of Europe is is the best way to describe it. And they spent 40 years building bunkers everywhere little concrete bunkers that could fit a couple of guys in there. And there were hundreds of thousands of them um all over the country and you know they they they poured an incredible amount of their of their GDP into just you know having one bunker for every three citizens or something stupid uh to prevent the invasion that they knew was going to be coming at some point and of course never did. But if a tiny poor Albania can spend all that time prepping it.
SPEAKER_01I thought it was interesting I mean a lot there's been a lot of news on this stuff one of the things I saw is that like Iran today exactly the website planning for a direct domain name where it was like com you know like they were not sure if you still have yourselves up but this is a long term where this is not I'm thinking that the Trump administration at some point is going to have to escalate or de-escalate situation. And maybe that seems you know as they're negotiating with Trump believes the deal is imminent. Preparing for this eventuality we've talked about this in if they strike a deal it seems like traffic through the streets that may or may not still be given to the Trump administration it's going to be Trump super fast.
SPEAKER_02Yeah so let's maybe let's do a kind of a quick recap of uh some of where these bets uh are at so we've talked about last time uh straight up hormuz traffic returning to normal uh in the in the month of May I think we all like that uh we all got in between 30 and 50 cents is up to 70 cents now so that looks looking good the no meeting bet last month uh was a winner for us so if you got that early from from me and the boys you made uh upwards of 10 times your money um and then the thing I think we wanted to talk about today as far as kind of our you know would you rather or if you if you had to is whether we think there's going to be a meeting is it a meeting uh by by June 1st that we said yeah no permanent peace deal no I use the permanent peace deal let me go into this if you had to uh Matt do you think there will be a permanent peace deal by June 30th that's the market we're looking at basically 5050 either way it's at a coin flip yeah I think I'd say yes I I I think uh I won't go too long and you guys can tie it to more tell more I think both sides want a deal and what I see actually happening is like more deals and then more problems in the future you know what I mean like I don't think oh we're gonna make a deal and things are just gonna be good and you know won't talk about Iran for the next 10 years.
SPEAKER_00I think it's gonna be a deal something happened in Straight of Harmu something happened you know something here proxy battles in Israel whatever you know what I mean uh and it's gonna be a kind of a re-up but I think I think they might find some landing spot here in the next two months so I'd say yes if I had to all right andrew if you had to so yeah so I've already got some no's that are down I had I got into the no at 63 cents it's now at 50 I'm waffling on this one I think the Trump is very cognizant of his polling talks constant constant talking about his rating and polling and then and and where he's at with what people think he's not principled he's not in this fight for ideological reasons and the big factor in my mind is kind of the start of the summer season kind of the start of the vacation season which is after Memorial Day if the price of oil is still way over a hundred dollars a barrel that's people putting off their vacations uh or deciding you know I'm not gonna drive to Florida or whatever.
SPEAKER_02This is already really real. I mean I'm paying 120 bucks an hour to fill up my palisade um you know I Costco the other week like I Costco stuff I know because I go there all the time and mostly buy the same things a bunch of stuff was up a couple bucks. You know what I mean? So I think this like the price increase on stuff is already very real. It's already hitting consumers um yeah this is I mean it already has tanked his popularity hugely if he has any chance of recovering you know by the midterms you know it's not like they're gonna like oh what's it got fixed in September so it's all good.
SPEAKER_01It's like no people want this uh fix now and the crazy thing again I this is kind of a longer slide but the crazy thing was when they're talking about Saudi and Kuwait not letting them them use their air bases it really does feel like he's completely running out of support um with whereas the UAE just left OPEC and I think they're maybe gonna straighten out the relations with Israel I mean there there almost seems to be a break forming within the uh the Gulf corporation or whatever yeah yeah um but yeah I mean it sure seems to me I mean there's been a lot of military assets that have like a lot of those C17 planes flying in from Europe flying in from the states to bring more military assets it does not look like the Trump administration is winding things down but maybe again this is posturing maybe this is them saying hey we'll go back to work if if if you want us to um Monday I think it was uh Iran hit the UAE and some uh some some ships in in in the Straits so both sides are seemingly willing to to to go back to violence but the question is will you had to please give us an answer because I would like a chance to go not to say that Andrew rambles but I would like to get a chance to go this I was like are we just moving like flip it back to me I'm I'm the moderator but uh Andrew if you had to are you going yes or no new doll no I I'm going no and I'm more I'm worried I'm wrong well I've been trying to go to my heart and I respect that because I I've been waffling on this bet too like initially when I sent this to you guys as as the proposal for this for this week I was like I feel like this is a no like I feel like they're they're not gonna get a permanent peace deal by June and you know I've been kind of flip-flopping back and forth based on what you guys are saying but you know there was that that news that the I think uh Saudi Arabia or I can't remember if it was Saudi Arabia or UAE was basically saying hey like you're not allowed to use our bases anymore for this Saudi I think right and they were saying like you know Project Freedom you didn't get our permission like we're not gonna allow this anymore and so I think well they've already the the new project Project Freedom they've already said it's over or something like that. They're saying I mean maybe they flip they they flip it on to the next project as their way of avoiding you know congressional scrutiny but I still just see it as the people around this situation like you know Gulfs and Saudi Arabia like I lost my UAE strike bet even though it may have happened because these guys aren't visibly or you know publicly jumping into this and I think that's just going to make it really hard for this to resolve even by June. So I I'd kind of flip back towards the no the yes on based on what Matt had said but uh I think now if you if you if I had to I I probably would go no on this one. Yes I would have to I'd my new dollar I'd say no on this one.
SPEAKER_02Well let's we we need to keep track of these because I know sometimes we're all in the same but uh one of our fans one of our ready fans in the future will be going back and tracking all of these and giving us the the rundown. Yeah I mean and to to answer your question about the troops thing Andrew I I put a little more sprinkle on it today when it dropped down to 20% after initially getting it at 30%. I mean I agree with you like if there is no deal by if you say it's 50-50 there's no deal by uh June I mean like at some point it has to go militarily right like it just can't be this standoff forever. I mean maybe it can't I don't know but it just seems crazy when you especially when you have the whole year to have that go.
SPEAKER_00Uh I think if you like the no on a deal then you should like the yes on troops uh at 20% I and and the thing I'd I I like about the no on the permanent peace deal is the wording of the language and I think we talked about this in the past but it's explicit language that you know hostilities between the United States and Iran have ended or will permanently cease and again I I think that's it uh it it's funny because uh the the the Ayatollah who who got assassinated back in whatever it was end of February um I think it was him no actually I think it was the uh Komani the the first one but when like the only time they've ever backed down like as a revolutionary government was during the Iran-Iraq war which lasted whatever six years hundreds of thousands of of of dead and more casualties um like horrendous trench warfare that went on between them for years and when they basically gave up or or you know came to an uh an agreement they didn't surrender or anything but they they he called it like drinking the bitter cup or swallowing the bitter pill or something like that and because it was basically saying all right our revolution is taking a step back here like we're not you know we're not uh we're we're taking a hit here it was the long and short of it and that was very difficult for a revolutionary you know regime and leader to do and I don't think that you mean you you can put you can put a ceasefire in you can get a JCPOA too or whatever but like the permanent peace deal the language of that I think is too antithetical to everything that Iran purports to be to put on paper we no longer have hostilities with the United States of America because they have explicitly had nothing but hostilities with the United States of America since 1979 we we have a permanent peace deal with the great Satan because we think it's good for business.
SPEAKER_01You know what I mean we we think it's gonna be fun. A little Satan we don't know yet or a little Satan but the great Satan they're bringing good business. I mean again I I think Trump if Trump does strike a deal with these guys he's gonna be coming in there being like hey guys I get it I know what your deal is it's gonna be okay we'll we'll let you stay in you know we'll let you do whatever you want to do it's gonna be the Trump power Tehran just let the oil flow yeah it's just like you know like we'll we'll just be buddies and and and you know again I that may have an effect but I I think it's gonna be hard like Andrew says to get the public they may not publicly say that even if privately they're very much agreeing publicly I think they're gonna be like no you know F you we would never you know we're we're still hostile towards you.
SPEAKER_00And of course they're gonna say we won we won the war we we achieve victory as as will Trump it doesn't even if even if he has to tuck tail and wit run you know they'll all say they won.
SPEAKER_02I mean I think the thing is that going to control we don't know right and I I yeah I think I think they honestly they they both want a deal realistically I mean I think uh Iran wants to keep their sovereignty and Trump wants to walk out of there with something that looks good.
SPEAKER_00I just don't think I I just they feel so far apart now especially on the nuclear stuff and they said you know they're gonna shut that down they didn't want to discuss it in any future negotiations so that is the one that is the one hedge that I have uh and I talked to you guys about this on the chat is I bought into Iran agrees to end enrichment of uranium I got you know mark May 31st but there's June bets or December bets. But basically they have to publicly agree to end all enrichment of uranium for any period of time. Uh and they just they just have to agree to it even if they don't actually plan and or do actually do it. Even if they don't actually do it. If they just say hey okay we're done enriching uranium for now uh I I think that would be enough to qualify.
SPEAKER_01Um okay let's hop over a little bit to uh some of the economics you know we've talked already about the Strait of Horror moves uh good chance it doesn't get closed by uh end of May according to the markets now we're rolling into June I think it's uh 50-50 ish whether it's back to normal by um yeah 54% for the straight um what do you like kind of long term for the strait and the oil markets kind of around that because they're obviously directly kind of correlated I mean I'm gonna sound like a broken record on why I like the the straits traffic bets because it doesn't have anything to do with uh you know some random foreign minister from Iran announcing a ceasefire or Trump doing the same on true social it has nothing to do with uh you know some one-off events it takes you know seven rolling days of at least 60 ships in you know simul you know or in succession and those decisions are made by you know individual ship captains based on what their crew is willing and not willing to do and their owners and insurance companies it's all very much comes down to uh you know will have you guys clicked on the site recently try try going to the port site I can't get it to load it's not showing anything and then it says nope to users due to ongoing conflict in the region there are reports of GPS jamming AIS spoofing and vessels going dark data points of April 27th to 2826 are being investigated and are subject to revisions please use data with care and refer to our fact page for limitations of the data so they may be choosing but are you talking about the port watch uh what's the port watch the port watch maybe it's just my internet is terrible right now it's not working but um I again I I think it's to some degree it's the individuals at port watch making these decisions more than the the captains right it's like the captains may decide to make the the the the travel and then if they turn off their correspondent and that doesn't meet the port watch definitions then you know again it just all this dark travel and these you know secret deals and these people moving around shadily may not even qualify for these guys you know for the port watch. Which is good for my no bet. Yeah exactly and I just I just re-upped on on a bunch of no for June for for that 50-50.
SPEAKER_02If I had to again I'm going to the no on on June which is crazy it seemingly from how I felt a few I mean and looking at you know there are allegations that they're still getting some ships out you know getting to China or whatever but like you said yeah they're probably not being tracked they might be spoofed and they might be whatever like this um yeah I think I like the bet. What about the oil market, Sandra? I know you have some bets there. Uh what do you where you've been at? What do you like? And is there anything we should hop in at?
SPEAKER_00Uh I mean I've if we recorded this yesterday I would have been much happier and more optimistic but uh a lot of them are down across the board because oil dropped about$10 I think uh the WTI to open today came up a little bit um after that all my bets are end of June which means I I have some time and I mean we talked about this before we're talking whatever between 10 and 20 million barrels a day that aren't getting to market that's a lot of demand that needs to be killed and you know for us who are North Americans yeah we just pay it you know and and and our our our gasoline needs are very inelastic but you know for a lot of people in the world uh you know these things start breaking at a certain point and I think it's gonna have to keep going up before the demand is truly extinguished and I don't think we've seen that yet what's what's all that right now Andrew do you know uh I think WTI's 95 uh recording here on the 6th uh of May and then I think Brent is maybe$10 higher I mean it's pretty interesting they they say in you know there's uh 40% chance 38% chance so it hits 120 by the end of June you know 27% chance 130 like these these numbers are getting pretty crazy uh you know we're talking pretty big major jumps here in the next two months that the market at least decently sized markets think is definitely possible um well I mean yeah I uh I kind of want to take some of the long shots 150 by the end of June yeah might just get a little crazy here.
SPEAKER_01This is one where I even struggle to find what metric they're using specifically um like again I'm trying to find like the CL price and it says like refer to the CME group website specifically the daily settlement price for the active month of crude oil futures it's like this is not even like crude oil futures overview okay so it's a 95 right you know the question is will will it get to these various prices like which which one what dollar amounts are you in at Andrew do you think it's going are you buying the like 115s and the 120s or where where is your money here?
SPEAKER_00I took a bunch of shares across a lot of the different markets um and you know one it is WTI and it has to it has to be an end of day uh it can't be an introduction High. Um, but uh I mean 120, for example, for WTI, it's only at 35 right now, but as of yesterday, it was 60% that it was gonna hit 120. So again, a lot of things are moving very rapidly here. Um, based on, again, kind of tweets and truth socials that that Trump administration puts out. Market reacts accordingly. Uh, it's just a question of if any of these things are ever gonna stick that Trump says, because uh seemingly um nothing is actually gonna get these ships to go through until somebody demonstrates that the straits are open, they won't be attacked uh by Iranian ships or missiles. Never mind uh hit mines, which at this point I'm not even sure if there are mines in the strait, but just the threat alone seems to be enough. And maybe that was just a bluff, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right? They're like, hey, we we definitely mined it, and then like secretly they hadn't made the mines or they're no longer working, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, like the you know Mariners are gonna have a much different uh comfort level with a even small outside chance that disaster strikes, as opposed to like say the military would. Like if if if you went to the US military and said, hey, this operation has a 99% chance of going off smoothly, they'd be like, fuck yeah, let's let's roll. You know, time to hit Maduro or whatever they want to do. But if you're talking about like an oil or gas laden super tanker uh that's worth you know hundreds of millions of dollars, and you say, hey, there's only a 1% chance that this gets turned into a fireball, that's that's still one percent. Like that's not a risk that again, a captain, a crew, a shipping company, I'm sure anybody's willing to take in order uh to you know run the gauntlet and risk having their ship blown up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, and I and I understand that, and I I kind of agree with that, right? It's like I feel like hitting these oil bets is kind of a doubling down on me and your uh thoughts on the no for the straights. But uh yeah, I think that's uh we can wrap it up there for the week. Uh I don't think there's anything else we wanted to touch on uh too much detail and leave some of the other updates for next week, but unless you had something there, Andrew. And Matt, who's definitely here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh we can talk Keir Starmer real quick. Uh I had talked about this.
SPEAKER_01We'll do the duo. Let's not let's not pretend like Matt is here and just being silent. We can pretend.
SPEAKER_00Um I had talked about uh Keir Starmer back in February. Um he had that scandal with um Mandelson, who he had appointed to be special ambassador to the US or something, and you know, clearly was not vetted properly as he has some deep ties to Epstein and was exposed when when all the emails came out. And I thought he was a good bet to resign. Hasn't done it yet. I've got some end of June um bets that can still pay off. They're up. Uh let me just check here.
SPEAKER_01So would you are you looking at like June or December on this one? Because the December's up pretty significantly, whereas June is going down, so it doesn't seem like the markets think it's happening immediately, which I get because like June is not far away.
SPEAKER_00So I've got end of June. Um and I bought in at 33, it's up to 42 now. Um, but the the key I think factor will be when they go to the polls in the UK tomorrow um for some local elections, but it's still party elections. And if labor is absolutely trounced, like it looks like they're going to be, uh there's a good chance that might be the the final straw for Keir Starmer, and though Labor will find someone else to take his place and hopefully uh not go down with the ship.
SPEAKER_01I mean, do uh do you do you like I feel like I mean I when I'm looking at the December, right? It's like June's going down. So that like the market is it seems to me like almost the market is finally accepting this is not happening short term. And I I get that it's a possibility, but I again I I think you're right. Maybe maybe if if labor does terribly in the next short little while, maybe they think, hey, they call an election or they do something.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, we so I just think like Sturmer is um mute yourself there, Matty.
SPEAKER_01Mute yourself if you're not talking like we always do. You know no, you're not you haven't done it. You're not muted. Mute yourself on the program, Matt. Click on the little button on the screen. There's a little microphone. Okay. Uh in any event, I I I feel like Starmer just like I would almost want to go by the no for December, just because I feel like this is a pretty long shot that that actually ends up coming to effect. Like they gotta pull an election and get him out of there by December. That also seems uh like maybe the the market could be reacting prematurely, so that's why I would almost think to the no, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_00He it this was at 23% uh like mid-April. Um so market sure thinks it's more likely to happen the last couple of weeks than uh when they did a couple of months ago. So we'll see where this goes. I like it. Um but uh it's not definitely not one of my bigger bets.
SPEAKER_03Polymox box, polymox box.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's wrap it up there then. All right, polymox box, polymox box.