President Donald Trump‘s claim that he is “permanently opening” the Strait of Hormuz sent Polymarket peace deal odds surging on Friday, with traders repricing a potential US-Iran agreement by 28 to 43 percentage points across every major deadline.

But the market still isn’t buying the “permanently” framing: traders give just 41% odds of a permanent deal by April 22, the day the current ceasefire expires.

Cash-For-Uranium Plan Drives Repricing

The repricing tracks a scoop from Axios reporting the U.S. and Iran are negotiating over a three-page memorandum of understanding to end the war, with a central element being a $20 billion release of frozen Iranian funds in exchange for Tehran giving up its enriched uranium stockpile.

U.S. negotiators started at $6 billion for humanitarian purchases; Iran asked for $27 billion.

Trump pushed back on Truth Social after the story published, writing that “no money will change hands,” though he stopped short of denying the broader framework.

The US-Iran permanent peace deal market repriced across the curve. April 22 odds jumped to 41%, up 28 points. April 30 climbed to 62%, a 43-point move. The May 31 contract sits at 74%, up 30 points, while June 30 is pricing 81%.

On the separate Strait of Hormuz normalization contract, traders give 84% confidence that shipping traffic returns to pre-war levels by the end of May, after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared the strait open for all traffic for the duration of the ceasefire.

Energy Names Caught Between Two Trades

Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and the United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO) have already repriced downward on ceasefire chatter, with XOM trading around $148, off its 52-week high of $176 hit March 30.

If the blockade holds and talks collapse after April 22, that premium snaps right back, and energy names rip higher. If a deal materializes by early May, the Strait actually reopens and the energy complex gets repriced lower.

Traders appear to be hedging on whose words to believe: Trump’s optimistic sound bites, or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s warning that the blockade will continue “as long as it takes.”

For now, Polymarket has made the call: traders see a grind toward a deal, not a breakthrough.

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