Tarek Mansour, co-founder of prediction market Qarshi, provided an update following the platform’s decision to void some positions opened after the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was confirmed.
“We don’t list markets that are directly linked to death. If we have a market where a potential outcome involves death, we design rules that prevent people from profiting from death. That’s what we did here,” Mansour said in a post on X.
Iranian state media reported the deaths early Sunday, following attacks launched by Israel and the United States the previous day.
Mansour said Kalsi had repaid all fees from the “Ali Khamenei stepped down as supreme leader” market and that traders who held positions before Khamenei’s death would be paid based on “the last traded price before his death.”
Additionally, users who opened positions after Khamenei’s death were refunded the difference between the higher price they paid for entry and the last traded price.
A Kalsi spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the platform’s policy of not allowing “dead markets” is clear and has been for many years.
The platform reiterated this policy on Saturday, with Mansour saying the carve-out provisions for death are clearly enshrined in the market rules. However, the decision sparked a backlash from online users, who accused the platform of cutting benefits for users.
Related: Kalsi expels US politician over insider trading charges
Suspicions of insider trading activity on prediction market platforms rise amid geopolitical tensions
In February, six traders on the competitive prediction market Polymarket made a profit of about $1 million by betting that the United States would launch an attack on Iran by the end of the month.
All six wallets were created in February and most bet on markets related to the Iran attack, with some positions filled hours before the first explosions were heard in the Iranian capital, Tehran, according to Bloomberg.
This trading pattern raised suspicions of insider trading activity among on-chain researchers and analysts.
In January, US President Donald Trump announced that US law enforcement had arrested a person who leaked information related to the attack and capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The comment fueled speculation that Lookonchain, the on-chain analytics platform mentioned by the leaker Trump, may be linked to a winning Polymarket bet taken just before the U.S. attack on Caracas.
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