Tensions between India and Pakistan appear to be escalating, but have also been trending in the crypto prediction market.
The Pahalgam attack 2025 that occurred on 22 April 2025, where 26 people were murdered by terrorists at Pahalgam in the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir. According to reports, five armed men with M4 carbines and AK-47 rifles opened fire at a popular tourist spot in the Baisaran Valley.
Weeks later, on May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor and targeted terrorist camps in Pakistan. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denied funding terrorists and claimed that the Operation Sindoor has claimed civilian lives in Pakistan.
According to the BBC, Pakistan claims 31 people died and 57 injured by air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir since Wednesday morning.
Now, Polymarket betters believe there is a 99% chance of a Pakistani air strike might hit the Indian soil by Friday, May 9, 2025. The odds surged by 27% within a day, reflecting the growing geopolitical anxiety.
The event had already drawn over over $3 million in bets, making it one of the platform’s most-watched markets.
Usually in prediction markets like Polymarket, each “bet” or “share” is bought for a few cents to a dollar, therefore this volume points to a very high degree of participation — probably tens of thousands of individual transactions.
On Apr 24, Polymarket saw a surge in bets on the ongoing India-Pakistan war where bets rose as high as 13% before dipping to 10%.
Interestingly, a recent report from the Bulletin of Business and Economics journal has found an increasing association between crypto scams and terrorism funding.
The report warns that militant groups often exploit crypto’s ‘privacy’ feature to finance operations related to terrorism.
It also highlights large-scale global scams like Squid Coin and Africrypt, along with a $100 million fraud in Pakistan, to show how bad actors take advantage of the digital asset industry.
However, it is important to note that no direct evidence has emerged linking cryptocurrency to the Pahalgam terror attack.