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
#27. Frozen War, Hot Markets
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Ep. 27 lands in a quieter—but no less uncertain—moment. With the Iran ceasefire dragging on, the guys question whether anything is actually improving, or if this is just a stalled negotiation dressed up as progress.
The key debate centers on a simple market: will the U.S. and Iran meet diplomatically by April 30? Despite odds near 50/50, the group leans firmly no—arguing neither side has incentive to concede, and recent failed signals (like the Strait reopening attempt) only reinforce the deadlock.
From there, they pivot to escalation risk. If talks fail, what’s left? A longer-term bet on potential U.S. ground involvement enters the mix—not as a prediction, but as a mispricing opportunity.
Andrew highlights one of the pod’s strongest calls: Strait of Hormuz traffic remains far from normal, and markets are quickly repricing any “back to normal” narrative. Even with a ceasefire, structural risk is keeping global flows suppressed.
They round things out with quick hits across AI (Anthropic vs OpenAI), crypto resilience, and Canadian politics, before ending on a familiar note: even when you’re right on the story, prediction markets are won or lost on the details.
The takeaway: less chaos this week—but no clarity.
Oh, wait, dad's here.
SPEAKER_03Let's get him in the pod.
SPEAKER_02We need a patriot.
SPEAKER_03I told Wayne if he wanted to get in the pod, you know? Have him sit beside you. We could do it. It'd be fun. Tell him, tell him he's our best performing podcast. Come on. I did. He walked away. I think that's a no. Okay, let's just start it. And if I have to, maybe we'll do a little, we may have to do a quick break, but we'll see.
SPEAKER_04Marks Podcast. All right. Well, welcome everybody to episode 27 of the Polymarks Podcast. Uh, we appreciate everybody coming back. This is your weekly reminder that betting on the future is easier than predicting it. I'm your host, Joel, here with my brothers Matt and Andrew. Uh, we got an exciting week lined up. We've got uh obviously some updates from Iran, as we usually do. We're gonna be uh doing updates on some other markets uh like our homeland Canada. We're gonna be talking aliens, AI, Bitcoin elections. Uh so we got some exciting stuff. In terms of Iran, uh I don't think there's been any huge developments since our last podcast. But Andrew, why don't you give us the rundown in terms of what's been going on in the last week or so and and uh then we'll dive into some of the bets?
SPEAKER_02Uh I mean, I almost beg to differ here, Joel. I mean, I sent you guys uh the chart of uh what some of my big bets have been doing this last week. There's been some some roller coaster developments.
SPEAKER_03Um there hasn't been a lot of movement. We've been in a ceasefire for two weeks now, and you know, no, yeah, like our markets on the straights are doing fairly well.
SPEAKER_04But like, I mean, it seems, yeah, like the meetings have stalled, you know. JD, I think, can't, or you know, the U.S. canceled one of their meetings, which has been good for some of us. But uh do we do we think there's anything else going on that we want to comment on, or do we want to kind of go straight into the if you had to section, which uh we love doing every week? Okay. Uh yeah, so let's talk general updates on Iran. Um obviously it's been a slightly slower week. We have the ceasefire going on right now, uh, but generally speaking, some of our Iran markets have been doing fairly well. The straits, the the meetings not happening. Um, Andrew, can you give us kind of a high-level rundown on on where things are at from your perspective? Uh, and then I think we'll get into the if I had to, which is a great uh section we're doing every week here now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, so the ceasefire that was declared on the 8th has held uh more or less uh on both sides.
SPEAKER_03Trump just extended that, I think I saw, or or or basically indefinitely extended well, no more bombing until while they I mean it seems like Iran essentially has the upper hand where they said we're not meeting with you guys in Islamabad. Um the plan with JD, Whitkoff, uh Kushner were all supposed to fly out to Islamabad, they returned. And the assumption I I from my understanding is that yeah, Iran didn't want to meet. And so now that the NSC's fire, instead of opening up and saying, Okay, we're back to bombing, Trump said, okay, we're gonna give some more time to figure this out. Obviously, it calms the markets a little bit, and we seem to be a little bit of an indefinite standoff at this point.
SPEAKER_02It sure seems like from the perspective of the Trump administration, they want to get a deal done. Right. What is much more of a unknown is what Iran wants and the different factions within Iran, uh one being the IRGC and the other being maybe the parliamentarian political wing and the Kurds and 35 other tribes, but uh I mean no within the regime there the there's factions. I mean the IRGC, I'm not sure how much we ever talked about this, but that was set up in 79 to specifically protect the the regime, to protect the revolution, and they answered all directly to the supreme leader themselves. And as we all know, or at least uh it's speculated, the supreme leader is in a coma. So if the only guy you report to is not even compasmentus.
SPEAKER_03Like, do we actually have any? I don't feel like we have any information about him whatsoever. We have AI videos of Trump is saying war room, but uh did Trump say well he Trump said he was gay too, or something like that, didn't he? I mean, I don't know. I mean I mean dead ass. Like I think he said that one time.
SPEAKER_04All right, well, let's get into the if you had to. Um this week's if you had to is the US Iran diplomating diplomatic meeting by April 30th. Currently it's at 50%. Over the last couple days, it's dropped about 10%, so the odds are going down. Um, Matt, if you had to, what would you what would you choose uh in terms of the April 30th date?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so this is uh was the big market I talked about last week. Like I said, we don't always have winners, you know what I mean. I made some bad ones with the ceasefire and the stuff like that. But um this one turned out to be so far doing well very well for me. Uh it was at 12% last week when we talked about it. And I told you guys, uh, you know, anything can happen, but just some whatever these guys don't want to end up having an in-person meeting. I think it's pretty simple. We saw that play out this week when uh yeah, Vance and Kushner et al. did not head over uh to Pakistan. So now the market is saying there's a good chance we don't think there will be a meeting by the end of this month. And uh right now we're 50-50 kind of a coin flip situation.
SPEAKER_04So and that's why it's gone down that 10%, right? I mean, obviously you've been interested in the no historically, but if you had to now, if you had to invest the new dollar, what would you pick?
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, I I still like going long. I still think, especially now where these are kind of indefinite terms uh from Trump, there seems to be some real um from Iran's perspective, they want to see uh Iran wants to see some concessions before they even meet, and I just don't see that happening. So I still like the long, I still like no meeting by April 30th.
SPEAKER_04Um yeah, I don't know if I said uh Andres, what's what's your take on the on the no there? Yes, yes or no. If you had to invest a new dollar now, are you taking a yes or no on April 30th for the diplomatic meeting?
SPEAKER_02So I think it's a no, and I think the proof is in how things went down on Friday. Um so on Friday, a bunch of ships uh supposedly got the green light when I believe it was the foreign minister or whoever's uh who had negotiated with um the Trump administration in Pakistan for the last round of talks, said, Yep, the straits are open, and a whole bunch of ships lined up to try and exit the strait. As soon as they got close to the IRGC um sort of toll booth, quote unquote, that they had set up outside the shipping lanes, they got the word from uh over the radio from the RGC, nah, the straits are not open. Everybody turned around. Uh the the roller coaster of of my April bets for you know where will the the traffic return to normal. Uh they spiked way up that all of a sudden people thought this was gonna happen and then went way back down right away. But it was the reaction of the IRGC and the the a lot of the public uh figures within the regime who said, no, you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to open up the straights in contravention of what you know the IRGC has said. Um, and I don't think there's anybody who has the authority to go and meet with uh the Trump administration, or at least has the the confidence with knowing that they can actually negotiate on behalf of the IRGC.
SPEAKER_04All right, so Andrew's uh Andrew's investing on the no if you had to put a dollar down now. Might not be the most exciting week, guys, on the if you had to, because I think I would take the no on this one as well. Um kind of kind of for similar reasons. Um so I won't get into too much right now because uh yeah, I mean I think it's obvious why we why the no seems to be advantageous here, but I will say I got my bet lined up right now. I'm clicking by. We're doing this live, baby. Uh but uh let's do some updates on some of the other Iran markets we think are interesting here. Uh one of the ones that Matt, I think, had highlighted that he thinks is interesting recently is US uh entering Iran. Um what are the sort of terms of that market, Matt? I don't know much about this. What are the sort of odds that you got in and what are the rules? Where do you think this is going?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um uh I got in um it's around uh 30%. Um and basically this has to be some type of troops where they said um they'll be um trying to hold ground essentially. Um and what I'm really thinking um at this point is that you know they really are a stalemate. I don't see how they get any leverage to get some of the major deals, especially on the nuclear deal, which was you know allegedly the main the whole point from the very beginning of what they wanted to do was you know at least get rid of the enriched uranium or whatever else uh they kind of need to declare victory. Um and so I think it's a decent chance this escalates. Do you know what I mean? And there are, and I know we already had the special forces um enter and we won that bet because of that, but there hasn't really been, you know, um that movement. So yeah, will the US uh invade Iran before 2027? Uh I just put a sprinkle down today at 30%. Um yeah, I think there's just a decent chance you get the whole year to for this to if they things don't work out, basically you're saying, will this ever instead of a peace deal go towards some type of invasion? And uh three to one over three to one, I I like the odds.
SPEAKER_02So special forces would not qualify, they have to take and hold land that is was de facto controlled by Iran prior to this war.
SPEAKER_03It says, yeah, if the US United States commences a military offensive intended intended, so it doesn't have to do it, but to establish control over any portion of Iran by December. Um I assume assume Carg Island counts for that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, as as as well as those islands.
SPEAKER_04I think we we we get into the we we get into the rules, and it's like I I just sold out of my carg islands bet uh in terms of April. But the can we always get into this sort of like the rule the the the result often ends up being being the consensus of reporting. And I don't think there would ever be a publicly facing we're the US and we intend to establish control over any portion of Iranian land. Um and and so again, I think when you be careful with those rules, um because because again, the military offensive, sure, I can see a decent chance, but it whether or not we can get consensus that that was intended to control a particular area of land, I think that's relatively small. Because I think the US is gonna never, ever, ever gonna say, oh, well, we want to control Carg Island or we want to control this certain area, they wouldn't want to say, well, we're doing this in cooperation. It's never like a long-term control thing, which I think what they you know that may wording may hinge on. What are you what are your guys' thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I guess what we're saying, like I understand what you're saying as far as like, oh, they're not gonna be intentions, but uh I don't see how they they put major ground troops in Iran, in Karg Island, in any other thing, and this doesn't resolve to a yes. It doesn't have to be permanent control, it just has to be control. Yeah, established control.
SPEAKER_04No, that's fair. That's fair again. Like, yeah, it's like if if if we can say they're taking Karg Island for for some period of time with the intention to control that long term, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's just like it's just like you know, Israel's admitted they're taking control of southern Lebanon. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just think there's a chance they say something similar, like, we're controlling, it's a strategic asset, we need to uh whatever, yada yada, yada.
SPEAKER_02There's also those islands in the in in the Persian Gulf, uh close to the Strait of Hormuz, which are claimed by the UAE, but are de facto controlled by Iran. We talked about it in previous episodes.
SPEAKER_03For me, that seems like the Is that one of those like kind of squiggly lines we talk about at Google Maps where is it even officially Well the de facto is like who's the who has the boots on the ground, right?
SPEAKER_04And I think Andrew's right that the de facto it's like if there's actual physical control that you can exert on that island, it's like if there's a base, if sure.
SPEAKER_03Sure, but I'm just saying, you know, specific to that market, it says establish control over any portion of Iran. And I think we know Karg Island is part of Iran. So do we know that these islands part of Iran?
SPEAKER_02But it also says land de facto controlled by Iran as of November 4th, 2025, which those islands were, whether or not the UAE recognizes them, they're de facto controlled. So any of those occupied by American troops would be a yes on this market.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, with with the intent to control that for the UA we UAE, which seems possible. Um I kind of like it even more.
SPEAKER_00You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04Uh my doubts have made you uh well company in your position.
SPEAKER_03Meaning, like uh if it's just the islands, if it's just an island invasion to start, you know what I mean? That seems much more possible and credible than uh like a mate, majority.
SPEAKER_04I feel like the US wants to escalate to that, right? Like they're trying to open the straits. I'm not disagreeing, Joel.
SPEAKER_03I'm just what I'm saying is I think it's a better three to one shot that they're not gonna come to a deal, you know, shortly, and that that this will be a way to kind of force Iran's hand to get a better deal or something like that.
SPEAKER_02I feel like I've been saying this for weeks now, but Trump's in a position where he needs to escalate in order to de-escalate. Yeah, and there's not many steps up the de-escalation ladder that he hasn't done yet, aside from invasion, getting boots on the ground. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03I mean, and uh, you know, Iran, you know, force of my hand. Who knows? But they said they said today somebody's spokesperson came out and said, we think this is just, you know, them almost just bluffing before they uh escalate with some type of ground forces. So uh basically that the ceasefire is somewhat of you even a ruse, um, which who knows if that's true. But I I I do think they want to get a deal, but I do think you're right, Andrew. Like there's how are they gonna get the terms they want unless they kind of do something more?
SPEAKER_02They being America. Yeah. I mean, I mean, now maybe is a good time to uh maybe take a bit of a victory lap for myself. Uh I feel like my biggest position for the longest time, and the one I've been talking about constantly, was the the Straits of Hormuz traffic. Um it had to hit a rolling seven-day average of 60 ships, uh, still down from the pre-war average, which is above a hundred. Uh, but because that's controlled or determined the resolution is through the IMF port watch. Uh ships that do sneak through are not necessarily uh considered for this market. That's all the way down uh to 95 uh the or all the way up to 95 if you look at it that way for my no bet. And I'm very happy with that. Um I'm considering rolling almost all of my win here into May. Uh let it ride, baby. Let it ride. Well, I was gonna say, like, I like these bets were down a lot when it seemed like Trump had uh managed to cajole some sort of uh agreement out of uh the Iranians, um, and I was able to get some really good discounted shares because I rebought at the right time. And yeah, like the the other thing to consider that maybe I haven't talked about as much is even if some of these ships can get out, uh, you know, during periods of of doubt and uncertainty with either the Iranian blockade or the American blockade, I don't think any of those ships are are gonna then unload and come back into the war zone and and deal more with what they did. A lot of these ships, even if they ever get out, they're never coming back. Sure.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, sure, shout out to you, Andrew. Like I I my my portfolio hasn't been performing particularly well recently, but my straits bets have. You know, I had the will 60 ships transit on any day by April and the Will Straits return to normal. And it's interesting to me that the will straits return to normal is at 94, which is the seven-day rolling average of 60 ships, and the 60-day transit on any day is at 91. I guess, I guess it's possible there it's harder to get to that uh seven-day rolling average.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's just kind of set a little bit of the um of the landscape for where we are. So uh about five days ago, people thought there was an 80% chance that we'd be back to normal traffic by the end of May. It's now down all the way to a 45% chance. So uh the market's telling us that we don't think it's gonna be back to normal by the end of the following month, which is basically kind of the the market saying that whatever is going on, it's not gonna probably be a clean deal where things are just back to normal normal. Um so Andrew, like obviously we're not getting in at uh quite the good price you could have got in a little while ago. Um, but you can still almost double your money. What what do you think? You like to know here around 56 cents?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I I bought 600 shares at 34 cents four days ago, so I I actually timed this pretty well. Um but uh close to 50-50, like I said, I'm still in the headspace that I want to keep this uh keep this roll and and uh uh you know kind of parlay it into May. I again I the I mean these are obviously uh very difficult to to to come to any sort of assurity on these events that are ultimately dictated by one orange man in the White House and whoever wearing the turban in Iran that can actually, you know, come to a deal. But the the the the mechanisms for resolving this don't have to do anything with that. It has to do with will the captain convince his crew, convince his uh insurer, convince his owner, all the different like factors in play to get 60 ships rolling through every day on average for a week straight. I don't see that happening, uh, especially considering what's happened here in the last week. Both Iranian naval forces attacked and seized ships within the last couple of days. We're recording on on Wednesday the 22nd here, and just uh a couple of days ago, the American Navy, if you guys saw this, the the video is pretty dope, put rounds through the engine room of an Iranian uh tanker um bored and seized it with Marines. Uh I mean side note.
SPEAKER_04I I did it. That that was interesting. It was one of those things where they're like, clear your engine room, clear your engine room. And and I mean again, this just shows the capability of the United States because I don't think there's many people who could be like, hey, I'm not gonna just sink your vessel, I'm gonna put a round through your engine block, and there's no way you're ever gonna start it again.
SPEAKER_02Right? Like it used to be a big deal to even hit another ship that at sea moving with your ship, they're doing it on specific portions of the ship. First time since the 80s that the American Navy has shot another ship in anger. Crazy.
SPEAKER_04Well, and also the secondary in terms of the uh in terms of the the the daily macro. Maximum, right? Like it looks like April 18th is the the highest one recently, and that's only at like 29 ships um total, right? So it uh it seems like yeah, if I had to, I I I I would re-up on my May bets. I'm considering doing that more just you know, because mine are already performing so well, they're close to resolving. So I you know, I may move some of that.
SPEAKER_02Um there was a cruise ship that was trapped in the the Gulf that ran the straits to get out. No, I did not. Everybody pointed out that uh uh I'm not sure if if Joel ever got into the far side much, but remember we used to love those far side comics, uh like the galleries when we were kids. There's actually a far side comic, uh it was written in the 80s when the last time they had uh you know these problems in the Persian Gulf, and it was like the love boat uh accidentally goes off course and sails into the Strait of Hormuz. So everybody was making jokes about you know this uh cruise ship doing something similar.
SPEAKER_03Time is a flat circle, you know.
SPEAKER_02It really is.
SPEAKER_03Um okay. Any more other bets you guys like uh with Iran or should we hop into some other other stuff we like?
SPEAKER_04Okay, so let's move into the AI markets. Um, just for kind of an update, or uh for those who've been listening to us for a while, we talked about this market previously, which company will have the best AI model.
SPEAKER_02One of our first episodes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, by by the end of 2025. And at the time, you know, if you looked like mid-2025, it was OpenAI, it was Google, XAI had a decent shot at it. Um, and and that was essentially it. And but now, if we look at things, it seems like anthropic and claude are at the top a lot of these markets. Matt, I think you looked at this a little bit more closely. What are your thoughts in terms of the rules on the market around what's the best AI model now? It seems like it's been a crazy change, right? Like going from Claude and Anthropic being, you know, 1% or 5% or less, and all the way up to like a convincing lead, it seems like a really interesting change.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I if you guys remember, my first thought kind of getting into this market a long time ago was to not bet against Elon. And I still don't think that's a crazy idea, um, especially in the long term. But yeah, like we said, huge seeds change. Anthropic has really grabbed the bulls by the horn, become kind of the dominant model, um, with uh Google OpenAI kind of falling behind. And if you look at where they think things will be, um, for now, Anthropic's dominating with but open AI is supposed to release a new model tomorrow, and they say there's about a 30% chance um that this model will basically surpass what Anthropic has done um in the next week or so. So it's interesting because we've talked a little bit about open AI in the past and some of the struggles they've had despite being the huge kind of early leader in the frontier models. Um and I and I wonder if it's worth a shot. I I think Andrew's gonna think differently, but I do wonder if it's worth a shot um that they do come out with something that really does kind of put their best foot forward because and I guess my thesis would be that allegedly Anthropic already has a frontier model, their newest one called Mythos, but it's in closed beta because they've had so much uh problem with them finding security audits and you know basically being used, potentially used for hacking and things like that, they're not gonna release it to the general public right away. But open AI, because they have I think a lot better compute setup, they may be able to release their newest best model completely broadly to you know anyone paying 20 bucks or whatever. And if it really does outperform the Opus 4.7, which is I believe what they're essentially competing against, um, yeah, maybe there's a better than 3.131 shot that open I pulls us off right now. And then we can look at maybe some of the further markets if you want to have an eye guess who's who's gonna be winning by the end of the summer or something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I guess before Andrew hops in there, um I you're right. I think it is interesting what's been going on between anthropic and open AI. The missile, the mythos drop first, you know, has that air almost of like, oh guy, oh guys, this is so dangerous, we can't release it. Like, our AI is so advanced, we can't possibly release it to the public. And then you see these commentaries where it's like, well, Sam Altman in OpenAI was basically doing the same thing like years ago, right? And and um, so it it's possible that that's the play that Anthropic is making, but I I agree with you that it seems like if anthropic has gotten to that you know mythos level, and if most of the open AIs are relatively um you know at a same level, it seems like open AI's next update could have a shot, right? And and there could be an upside to buying that now, at least that on the news, and everyone's like, oh wow, it's doing all these amazing new things. Maybe that that odd uh those odds skyrocket even if you don't necessarily hold out till the end of April. But Andrew, uh, I think Matt wanted you to kind of give your thoughts on this one.
SPEAKER_02I think it was Sachs who was talking about it in the All In podcast, but he was speculating that maybe the real reason that Anthropic wanted to keep Mythos in closed beta was that they just didn't have the compute necessary to release it to the the wider public uh because it would be so taxing on their their server farms.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like if they have to if they have to do like thousands of tokens for every query, then it doesn't really matter how good it is if it can't be can't be used by the general public because it's just too exhaustive.
SPEAKER_04Well, and that's the theory is that mythos isn't isn't more efficient than the current model, right? Or if anything, it's it he was indicating that on average it's probably gonna be much higher, which is why I'm just saying yeah maybe it doesn't get released to the general public, and open AI maybe is not taking the different things.
SPEAKER_03No, I'm essentially agreeing, you know, and they do they do have bigger backing open AI. I mean they raised I think 800, whatever it was, whatever number it was. It was a just insane number. Um so yeah, they they might be able to have the compute to kind of go forward. So go ahead, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02I mean, ultimately, I don't want to take the the open AI three to one, four to one shot. I I I like better. Take anthropic as 70 to keep on uh you know doing what they're doing, um, and then you'll still make a nice good return here over the next week, assuming that Chatby GPT doesn't uh come out of the gate blowing uh anthropic off the leaderboard. Um I think that's mostly based on the fact that Chat GPT-5 coming out was a flop, if you guys remember. I've been using uh Chat GPT for quite some time now. I like it, but it is not uh head and shoulders above um anything else that I I I've seen from Anthropic. And I don't are you using the free version, Andrew, or do you get my 20 bucks every month?
SPEAKER_03You I saw a really interesting chart um on and you're you're you're and you're paying it, you're paying it to open AI, eh? And you don't want to switch to I you don't want to switch to anthropic, I kind of recommend it to be honest. Especially especially for I don't I don't especially for like business type stuff. Like I find it much better.
SPEAKER_02But my business I ended up going with uh perplexity and uh I I like their new computer. Yeah. Interesting.
SPEAKER_04Um isn't that yeah, I mean, I mean the interesting thing for me, it's like I haven't paid for one personally. My partner has uh paid for Claude, which I understand she paid for Chat GPT, I think before that. Um yeah, it's like I haven't paid for anything personally, but my company, my my law firm, we've gone through a few different we went with uh the co-pilot, which is the Microsoft AI, and now we've gone on to Super Grok. Um and I wonder how much of that is a financial decision in terms of what these companies are offering on a business level versus what the actual capabilities are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like again, my understanding is the anthropic is the one that's going ham as far as dramatically increasing the billings for for for enterprise use. Um I'm surprised your law firm's actually going with grok. That would have been that would that would that would have been the last I would have guessed, to be honest. I would think that's more of like a individual user preference.
SPEAKER_04Well, yeah. One of my coworkers who's like, well, the new fascist leader of our AI. Yeah, exactly. Well, that too, right?
SPEAKER_03Because you know, Elon's controversial, like, you know, it might be just cheaper or more chill to go with whoever.
SPEAKER_04Um no, and it's like I I've been most impressed with Claw on a personal level, and it does seem like if they're leading the enterprise, it's surprising that most businesses don't go with them.
SPEAKER_03But so what do you guys think about extending this out a little bit? Um is there any anything you see that you kind of like? I see Google and OpenAI are kind of both popping in the last week and and anthropics taking a little deep a little dip when you kind of move it out to June 30th. And then in the back of my head, it's it's probably stupid, but at at 2% or at one 1.6% for 50x your money. Should I throw a should I throw a double down on on XAI and just uh think the Colossus that Elon has been working on somehow matched? I mean, they just made a big deal with cursor. Um, I don't know. Maybe it's I mean, I don't even really know the exact parameters uh to qualify for this bet, but I just cursor they were selling uh GPU capacity, which would indicate to me that XAI is not maxing out their own uh compute capacity, but also allegedly when he first set up the Colossus uh whatever mainframe or whatever you want to call it, like it was kind of head and shoulders above some of the competition, which was crazy because he was. I mean, and I think I guess at the end of the day, if you're gonna say what is Elon's core advantage over other companies in general, it's always been the physical, the moving the atoms, you know what I mean? Like old school old school hardware guy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean it's a AI XAI is obviously gonna be doing some interesting stuff with Colossus, and it seems yeah, there's always that outside edge that Elon gets it done. You know, we we talked about double bet against Elon, but it's interesting to me looking at the you know which company has the best AI model by the end of April, that Deep Seek still has a higher chance than XAI, right? Like it's 0.2 for the Yes for X AI, and it's a 0.5 uh for the Deep Seek, right? It's like I'm I'm shocked that the X the models, the Deep AI, the Chinese open source models still have that same percentage chance. But um do you guys think there's any outside chance of the X the Chinese models?
SPEAKER_02For me, I think you'd be smarter taking like the the end of June uh bets on XAI or Chinese models. Well that's what I was talking about.
SPEAKER_03I wasn't I wasn't talking I I wasn't talking about the uh I was talking about the 2%, yeah, sorry, the 50x uh for the XAI at uh for for June, yeah, which was at 1.6 and now is already up to 2.2. So I don't know if we're broadcasting this live, but you know, the market's moving, the market's moving as we speak. But and interesting enough, too, the XAI has the most volume out of it of any of the markets, so it does seem to be the most controversial, but most people are solidly betting the no, which seems crazy that people are like trying to eke out 2%. You know what I mean? Um, but hey.
SPEAKER_01A lot of Elon fans and the crypto world and haters, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, let's go into some other markets here then. We can talk about uh Bitcoin updates, perhaps, Matt. I think you're you're you got some interest in the crypto market, what's been going on with uh with Bitcoin and uh or do we want to talk Canada first?
SPEAKER_03Uh we can talk Bitcoin quickly. I don't have a lot to say, but you know, one of the bets we did win the little win or with up a little bit, we haven't won anything yet, was that Bitcoin wasn't gonna dip below 50,000. It's uh back up to high 70s right now. So pretty good um you know indication that it might be on the right side. I like it. And then of course the the gold Bitcoin bet, I think that me andrew had opposite sides of that we kind of bet early in the market is now almost leveled off to 50-50. So um, if you do kind of like Bitcoin as a laggard, if you do kind of expect the money printer might be turned on here sometime before the end of the year, and that Bitcoin will have outsized returns, I still kind of like both those markets. Um as far as potential upside.
SPEAKER_02I have the opposite side of those uh Bitcoin bets, unfortunately. I took the yes on will it dip below 45 and 40? I really thought uh like my oil bets uh going to the moon that did not happen. Uh I thought that the markets would take much more of a hit uh due to the the Iran situation than they have. But you know, years a long time, there's a lot that can happen in 2026.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean uh I think opposite you, Andrew, maybe agreeing with Matt. I'm I I feel like I would take possibly the Bitcoin upside, one because of the money printing, all the crazy shenanigans going on, or it makes sense that looking at outside capital makes sense, but uh also to uh hedge against my actual crypto holdings being down massively in the last few years. Thanks for Matt for getting me into crypto. It's been uh wonderful journey. Let's talk Canada then. Do we want to talk um, you know, referendum? Do we want to talk generally about Canada? I know Matt uh the recent news is there's been a lot of uh coordination with the CCP.
SPEAKER_03Uh you know, we want to get into that. Well, I don't know if there's any bets pertaining to, but I mean again, just to kind of kind of catch people up on a few of the things, uh we'll have a province schedule referendum. We've talked about this a lot in the past. It's uh it's been up to the mid-70s, it's at 67 cents now, so there's still markets thinking that this will happen. Um we did lose the liberal majority in Canada Parliament, um kind of infamously, I guess. You know, we've had five floor crossers. Uh so instead of calling the election, these people have got some type of deals, it seems, and decided to switch teams, uh, just despite you know their staunch um conservatism in the past. And so, yeah, Carney, the prime minister, was able to get his majority. We did lose on that one, but now that does mean, or at least certainly it's we're at 96 cents, that another election to be called before June, which I also had the no on, is not gonna happen. So we end up doing okay uh in our Canadian markets. I don't know if you guys know anything specific you like, but that's kind of the quick recap of where we're at.
SPEAKER_04I mean, that's good in terms of the markets. Uh yeah, I mean I would agree with you. It's like it seems like democracy is dying in Canada if it's like, well, I voted for this particular person in my last election, and then they said, you know what, I'm gonna change parties, even if I was the most conservative uh, you know, MP. And yeah, it just seems kind of gross to me the way that this is going about. But the funny thing is, Propstacarney, um, you know, that my partner brought up, who's, you know, she's she's into political science, is like he set up this recent economic council where he's put on like Aaron O'Toole, who is like one of the past conservative prime ministerial candidates, and all these other conservatives, and it seems like he's really consolidating around the middle. And it's like, I don't know if we ever get out of this, right? In terms of the Liberal Party really taking over the majority of the Canadian politics and and and the base. It's like anyone who like was into Harper and old O'Toole is gonna be happy with whatever Kearney's doing now with this economic council.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's the the boomers, even like you said, even in the middle of the road, boomers I think are impressed by Kearney. He's gonna have his full majority, they're not gonna get into any of the scandals or the corruption. It's just gonna be all the kind of the committees are gonna be run by them, so they won't have any problems there. And yeah, I don't know if there's any bets pertaining to uh Carney becoming uh supreme leader in the next uh five, ten years. That is uh that's set for life. But uh you've convinced me of the yes on that one. Uh so let's let's open that market. Uh I'm down. Yeah, we'll will Cardi declare himself the supreme leader of Canada the next uh two years. Uh who knows? Um speaking of speaking of leadership, I wonder. Supreme leaders, we can get into Maduro, yeah. Well, exactly. That's the one I wanted to highlight real quick. Andrew did tell us. Uh Andrew, maybe you want to give a quick recap of of why you like this market and what the bet was because uh you got me in not knowing anything at 12 cents. Uh now three or four extra money, it's at 53 cents. What is uh the deal with the Venezuela leader end of 2026?
SPEAKER_02So I I think I randomly came onto this bet just looking at some other markets that I was into and the whales who were holding some of the top holders and just looking at some of the other markets that they're betting in. Uh I recommend other people do the same thing. Like it that's the great thing about polymarket is it's completely transparent. If you want to find out exactly who you're betting again and I'm betting against in any given market, go ahead and look at the top holders and find out what the other markets are that they like. And this is one of them that uh as soon as I saw it, I'm like, well, this instinctively makes sense. Uh the the bet is who will be the leader of Venezuela at the end of 26, and the resolution mechanism is like who the United Nations fact book will uh you know acknowledge is you know officially holds, quote unquote, the the role as the head of state of Venezuela, and as of right now, it's still Nicolas Maduro, despite the fact that he's in the Brooklyn holding facility in New York City awaiting trial. Uh Dulcy Rodriguez, uh his former vice president, uh might be the interim president, but she is not officially the head of state. And I can't imagine that she'd be in a hurry to take on that mantle. And unless uh officially done so, uh that's going to stay the way it is in the UN fact book or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and um shout out to I'm just Ken, who is the largest holder. Um, I'm not sure who that's who you saw, Andrew, but this guy who is up three million dollars overall. Our boy I'm just Ken, yeah. Of course. It might have been actually some of the uh some of the names you do, like I remember that one guy who like lost six million when they like we're like, oh, this guy's a huge, huge, huge winner, and then he lost six million when uh we invaded or America invaded uh or bombed Iran. So it's not like they're always winners, but this guy got in at 4.9 cents. He's up$53,000 um on this Maduro position, so pretty impressive. Um yeah, and the guy's up over$3 million overall. So, you know, I totally agree, Andrew. I I do like to look at some of these things and say, well, what is the smart money doing? Um, and you're shocked kind of when you get do get into this, is how many people are losers on both sides of the aisle off of most of these bets. So, you know, I know we're not up a ton, I know I'm up a little bit on these uh markets, but anytime you're beating these markets, I think you should feel good because most people do end up being losers, and it does seem like there are a few whales that must have some real smart and informational advantages uh to be able to uh make some real money here. He's also on the know about aliens, so you know, maybe maybe that's good why I switched my Matt.
SPEAKER_04Do you want to give us a quick aliens recap? What's going on with that before we uh yeah?
SPEAKER_03I bought into the aliens around nine cents. Um we talked about a couple different markets. One of them was already um we already won, which was kind of like a disclosure um around uh unidentified flying objects or something like that. We won that one. But the bigger one was will the US confirm that aliens exist before 2027? And I actually made this a decent side holding at one point, um, up more than double my money right now. Um uh it's at 21 cents. And I think I'm gonna sell out out of all of it. I think I'm gonna take the win and you know, not get too much into conspiracy world, but it is the end of the episode, so I guess we can a little bit. But I I do think there's a chance that there is some type of major disclosure this year around UAP. And around unidentified flying objects, essentially, but not necessarily them confirming it's extraterrestrial in um existence. Do you know what I mean? Saying either we don't know or it's non-human or whatever they're gonna say, but that might not satisfy the criteria of the bet. So I think I'm just gonna take the win because of that, because um it's one of these things where you could be right, there could be some major disclosure that happens, and you still don't necessarily win the market.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I got out of this. I should have hauled on apparently, like you, Matt, did Matt, but um it makes sense to me that like even if they disclose, like, hey, we've got this extra-rex terrestrial craft that may not necessarily satisfy that we can prove that there are aliens in terms of what they might just say, oh well, who knows where this came from, right? Like it could be anyone. Um, you know, we don't know necessarily if it's uh proves that it's aliens. I get that just a stretch, but well, just to touch on the market, I'll just read it real quick.
SPEAKER_03Then Andrew, you can comment. It says, uh, yeah, any any president, any member of the competent or joint chiefs of staff or any federal agents definitely states that extraterrestrial life or technology exists by December 31st. Um so really either of those things would qualify, but it again they'd have to say extraterrestrial and not of unknown origin, meaning, like hypothetically, like I mean we're joking, but it could be from Antarctica or from the oceans or whatever, right? And if they don't know the true origins, how can they definitively state that it is extraterrestrial? So, I mean, we've joked and talked about this legacy program in the past. They could almost even say that they could confirm the existence of it and maybe still not win the bat. That's kind of where my head's at.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if you got any thoughts, Andres. Solo Psyop Rubio just wants to get his name out there.
SPEAKER_03Uh uh, I think it could be a Psyop to be. I'm not I'm not, you know me. I'm I'm not disagreeing.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I mean, literally, the the Democrats spent almost the entire last presidential election cycle being like, we need our own Joe Rogan. Well, what does Joe Rogan fucking talk about all fucking day long? Is aliens. So, I mean, it's it's not you know, like politicians are dumb. They see who's popular, they see what gets clicks, they see what gets likes, they see what gets the the masses stirred up. They're gonna hit that same button. Um, whether or not I'm hitting the alien button. The alien button seems very appealing to me.
SPEAKER_04Seriously.
SPEAKER_03I click all the videos that have aliens. Okay, well, let's let's get a little okay. For people that are only here for the best, they can log off now. But um, all our financial people, we're we're going into conspiracy corner here, so maybe you can log off. Have you guys been following these like all these deaths and uh suicides of UFO researchers? NASA and NASA, all these crazy, like high-up people on the leading bleeding edge of certain type of physics and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04I saw that I saw that the local news was reporting on some of that stuff. Yeah. Um whether or not I think it's actually.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I was just gonna say, I mean, allegedly is a conspiracy. Allegedly, there's like 10 high-up people in the last few months that you know have similar type of backgrounds, uh, but has yet to be, you know, officially investigated as some kind of like uh potential involvement together or whatever.
SPEAKER_02But again, like let's uh assuming all these things are true, and assuming all the things that like uh you know, what's her face, Anna Paulina Luna, and and and the the other people in Congress who again want to be famous, want to get their name out there.
SPEAKER_03Well, uh I find the I find the the the the Tim guy, the old dude, the most credible just because he's an old dude. But but whatever. My whole point is just Tim Waltz, yeah. No Tim Bird, it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna matter. He's some guy from like South Carolina or something like that.
SPEAKER_02My point is to say, like, if all these things are true, like nuclear scientists. Uh I just got a text from our buddy Brett. Do you want to know? Like, I just got this right now. Do you want to know exactly what the text message from our buddy Brett says? All these scientists dying recently. What's that about? Literally just texted me that right now. He must have a cutting edge, buddy, doing the match.
SPEAKER_03Brett needs us to reach out to me. I think I'd give a lot more better feedback than Andrew would. I'd be like, yeah, dude, what the hell?
SPEAKER_02Well, my point is to say, if all these things are true, let's let's grant you all these things, and then there's UAPs flying over nuclear sites and uh ballistic missile sites and all these other sensitive areas. Would not the natural answer to what these things are is it's the communist Chinese party who's uh surveilling these places or kidnapping or killing scientists. Why would it be the aliens? Why do the aliens need to like they they see things from from a hundred meters or anywhere around?
SPEAKER_03I don't think anyone's I don't think anyone I think I think the I think the the conspiratorial allegation is not that it's aliens doing it, but that it is um someone from the program trying to like you know cover up or people that have that that's the conspiracy angle I've heard is that like it's are they taking out the people that will either um you know snitch and say things aren't true or someone that knows too much already, yada yada.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean that's the angle is that the US government is trying to keep this under wraps or China's keeping this under wraps rather than the aliens are coming in and doing anything. It's a question of we think this is so important that we're taking out our own scientists.
SPEAKER_03Again, right, or that they're or that they're like they're on the brink of discovering, like because you know, I mean, Andrees Mark Andreessen's talked about this, that there is certain uh physics that the Department of Energy and other parts of the you know the deepest deep states of the kind of the sciencey deep state of the US teams, um, what do they call it? It's like um classified on origin. I'm not saying it right, but it's basically this idea that you know you can't you're not even allowed to talk about it. It's like classified before it even gets put down to paper or something like that.
SPEAKER_04I don't know, I don't know. I obviously I have a more skeptical angle on some of this stuff.
SPEAKER_03It seems to me like as we probably all should, we probably all should.
SPEAKER_04You know, we don't we don't want to delve into any other conspiracy theories, but it seems to me like it's possible too that people die on a regular basis, and sometimes those things line up, and just because all the deaths of witnesses andor scientists to a particular conspiracy doesn't necessarily mean that the government is taking them out.
SPEAKER_03Um, no, I don't disagree, but it it's it's what is one of those things where you do get to a certain number and stuff does get a sort of get weird. People die, but uh yeah.
SPEAKER_04But people people flip heads 20 times in a row. Uh, that doesn't mean that like some crazy impossible thing is happening. It's like that's what odds and statistics are. Sometimes some crazy shit lines up and coincidences happen.
SPEAKER_03I you know me, Joel. I'm a I'm a gambler. I guess I'm not saying not, but also sometimes there are conspiracies to kill and take out people. That's what I believe. But I'm not saying this is happening here. But I think that sometimes people do, yes, it's it's born classified, the concept that under the Atomic Energy Act, there's certain physics, certain things that are already classified before they even come out.
SPEAKER_04So well, let's leave it at that then. You know, that's a good thing. That I think is a good point to stop here for the week. That was good pot, boys. Um, yeah, hopefully we'll be uh electing Supreme Leader Carney here soon, but uh uh let's leave it to the update for night week next week.
SPEAKER_01And uh elected, that's an appointed position. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_03All right, declared, self-declared. Self-declare. I don't like Z. All right.
SPEAKER_01See ya, okay.