The US and Israel spent the weekend of August 1-2 preparing what CBS News sources called one of the harshest bombing campaigns yet against Iran's energy infrastructure. Late Saturday night, Trump announced he was canceling it, citing progress toward a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Polymarket's "Israel x Iran ceasefire continues through..." ladder - which pays out only if neither country strikes the other directly - jumped 19c to 31c across every date within the hour. As of 2026-08-02 08:45 UTC the August 15 contract prices at 85.5c (bid 85c / ask 86c), up from a Saturday low of 33.5c. Numbers below are from the Gamma and CLOB APIs, fetched at that time.
01A weekend built around one decisionWhat was planned, and what stopped it
The strike plan surfaced Friday, July 31: at a Camp David cabinet meeting Trump told aides "we'll be hitting them very hard - at some point they're going to say, 'we just can't take it anymore.'" CBS News reported the same day that the US and Israel were preparing to bombard Iranian power plants and refineries, with strikes possible throughout the weekend and some discussion of finishing before markets opened Monday. No final go-order had been given; some White House political aides were reportedly opposed. The report landed publicly Friday evening, and Polymarket's ceasefire-continues prices fell across every date within hours.
Saturday brought no strikes but no resolution either - Israeli officials were reported to believe Iran would fire on it regardless of whether Israel joined a new US offensive, and the ceasefire ladder kept drifting down, bottoming out Saturday afternoon and evening. Then, Saturday night, Trump said the attack was off: Iran and "other Middle Eastern countries" had asked him to hold off while a deal came together, one that would include "the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT." Israeli Channel 12 reported the shape of the compromise - ships would enter the Persian Gulf on the Iranian-controlled side of the strait and exit via the Omani side, a Qatar-and-US-brokered arrangement Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had reportedly agreed to. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had called Trump the same day urging him to prioritize talks over a fresh round of strikes. Iran's military disputed Trump's framing, calling the claim that Tehran had requested the cancellation "a lie," while confirming that no strikes had, in fact, occurred.
02Two contracts, one weekendThe move, in the order book
The chart below tracks two dated contracts on the same ladder: the nearer August 15 date and the farther August 31 date. Both trace the same shape - a Friday-evening drop on the CBS report, a soft Saturday, and a sharp recovery once Trump's cancellation landed around 02:00-03:00 UTC on August 2.
CEASEFIRE-CONTINUES LADDER, 24H AGO -> NOW (AUG 2 08:45 UTC)
Continues through Aug 2 79.5c -> 98.8c
Continues through Aug 3 76.0c -> 97.8c
Continues through Aug 4 73.5c -> 95.5c
Continues through Aug 9 66.5c -> 89.5c
Continues through Aug 15 54.5c -> 85.5c
Continues through Aug 31 45.5c -> 70.5c
Why the near dates are near-certain and the far ones aren't
Line the six dates up and the shape is a decay curve, not a step function: 98.8c three days out, 89.5c a week out, 70.5c a month out. That gap is the market pricing two different things at once - the immediate question (did the weekend's specific plan get called off?) looks close to settled, while the longer question (does a ceasefire actually hold for a month in a region that has broken ceasefires before) stays genuinely open. The August 15 contract's book reflects that: it bids 85c against an 86c ask, a tight 1c spread, but with real depth building a few cents back on both sides rather than one large resting order - a book that's actively being worked rather than one nobody wants to touch.
The resolution rule also explains why this weekend's other regional flareups didn't move these markets. Each contract only resolves No on a direct air strike or surface-to-surface missile strike between Israel and Iran themselves - explicitly excluding naval fire, ground incursions, and strikes on either side's proxies or allies. That's why Kuwait's August 1 report that it shot down Iranian drones targeting a government facility on Bubiyan Island, and Israel's July 31 demolition of a Hezbollah tunnel system under Lebanon's Beaufort Ridge, left this ladder untouched: neither event was a strike on Israeli or Iranian territory. The market is a narrow bet on the two named combatants, not a general regional-stability index - which is exactly why a single planned-and-canceled US strike moved it by 30 points while two other live skirmishes moved it by nothing.
04A second market says the same thingCorroboration, with one caveat attached
A separate Polymarket ladder asks a stricter question - not whether strikes are avoided, but whether the US and Iran reach an "effective ceasefire" by a given date, the kind of formal arrangement a Hormuz deal would represent. It moved the same direction this weekend: the by-August-14 contract is at 68c, up from about 34c a day earlier, and by-August-31 is at 74.5c, up from about 47.5c. Both markets read the same event the same way, which is a useful cross-check on a single number - but the "effective ceasefire" contract still trades roughly 15-20 points below the matching "continues" date, the gap you'd expect between "nobody has struck" and "a deal actually got signed." Iran's public denial that it asked for the cancellation is the reason that gap hasn't closed: the market is pricing a de-escalation that's real in its effects so far, but not yet a deal either side has confirmed in writing.
05Watching the next ladder moveFollowing a fast-moving ceasefire from the terminal
A 31-point move in six hours is the kind of thing that's easy to miss between news-feed refreshes and easy to catch in a live order book. In polymarket-tui, opening the ceasefire event shows every dated contract on the ladder side by side with its 24-hour move, so a fresh strike report or diplomatic announcement shows up as a price change before it shows up as a headline.
$ uv tool install polymarket-tui
$ polymarket-tui
The install page has Homebrew and one-liner options.