[HN Gopher] Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?
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Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?
I built this because I was interested in the data. Didn't fully get
it to what I wanted, but thought I'd share it nonetheless. Maybe
someone has better data sources they could share! Turns out live
ship tracking APIs are expensive so I manually just copied the json
from
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:57.4/cente...
I'll probably have an ai agent do the same thing on some cron
interval, if this gets any fanfare. To actually know if the port
is open without live ship tracking I found
https://portwatch.imf.org/pages/cb5856222a5b4105adc6ee7e880a...
which was perfect, except it has 4 day lag! I also thought of
adding news feed parsing or prediction market data to get a more
definitive answer on if it's open right when you load it, but I
spent a few hours and am gonna move on for now.
Author : anonfunction
Score : 275 points
Date : 2026-04-08 21:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
HTML web link (www.ishormuzopenyet.com)
TEXT w3m dump (www.ishormuzopenyet.com)
| fraywing wrote:
| Very cool, thanks for sharing!
|
| What's the threshold function? Do you have graduating `No -->
| Partially --> Mostly --> Open`?
|
| Also what's the update cadence?
| anonfunction wrote:
| So if it's under 25% of the prior year's crossing it goes to
| NO, otherwise it's counted as open.
|
| The update cadence kinda sucks because I didn't spring for the
| $200 a month live ship tracking data, so I'm using
| https://portwatch.imf.org/pages/cb5856222a5b4105adc6ee7e880a...
| which lags by 4 days which isn't great for a site like this,
| but was fine for me on a little side project. Open to other
| data sources or ideas, of if anyone wants to sponsor an API key
| (I did reach out to a few vendors already if they would give
| the project api key in exchange for a link to their site).
|
| The original idea was to track ships and see how many crossed
| the strait but as mentioned above I didn't find any free
| sources so I went with what I did.
| truelson wrote:
| Really liked this. Made me laugh even if not intentionally funny.
|
| Also, given how markets and news cycles are moved with words not
| actions these days, I really like this site.
|
| There are still so many misaligned interests; this is a much
| tougher situation that may get some local stability for a period,
| but will likely return to chaos again.
| tehjoker wrote:
| It's worth remembering that the chaos is fully coming from
| America and Israel. The great satan indeed.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| You might want to rethink scraping marinetraffic before you get a
| call from their lawyers?
|
| https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/p/terms
| anonfunction wrote:
| Fair enough, I'm actually not scraping it on any automated
| cycle currently, I just manually copied the JSON from their
| site to get some ships on the map.
|
| There's a few live ship tracking APIs I considered but they are
| expensive or their free offering just straight up didn't work.
| I sent a few an email if they would consider sponsoring the
| project, no replies yet. - AISStream.io --
| https://aisstream.io -- Down/not working - DataDocked
| -- https://datadocked.com -- Ran out of credits on a single
| failed request - VesselFinder --
| https://www.vesselfinder.com/realtime-ais-data -- Enterprise
| contact form, asked if they wanted to sponsor in exchange for a
| link - MarineTraffic -- https://www.marinetraffic.com,
| their API is like an enterprise contact form, same as above,
| waiting for response.
| frogperson wrote:
| https://warescalation.com/ is also a good source of info.
| starik36 wrote:
| It says US-Israel Bloc military deaths - 74. Iran military
| deaths - 10,500 It has no information what is the source of
| information. Seems like made up numbers.
| bl4ckneon wrote:
| Very cool! I love one off intresting sites like this. Thanks for
| building it and talking a little bit about where the data comes
| from etc.
|
| On the note of Ai agent getting the data for you, could you not
| just build a chrome extention that intercepts/read the api
| response and then uploads it to whatever ingest endpoint you
| have? You could probably just call their api end points they use
| on the page as well but not sure what protections they have so
| might be a bit tricky. A custom chrome extention could do it
| though if they have protections.
| anonfunction wrote:
| Their APIs are protected by cloudflare, I didn't want to
| circumvent that. Also I dont really want to make a chrome
| extension or have a browster tab open, if that's what you
| meant? I've already made a cron style agent framework[1] so
| that's what I'd probably reach for since they can actually open
| the browser and inspect the network traffic to grab the json.
|
| 1. https://botctl.dev/
| Klonoar wrote:
| How is doing it via agent not circumventing it?
| anonfunction wrote:
| I think I was just spit-balling what would be possible,
| rather than what I intend to do. As mentioned elsewhere I'm
| hoping to get an API key from one the data providers, I
| even reached out to the api behind marinetraffic.com,
| https://www.kpler.com/product/maritime/data-services to see
| if they would sponsor the project.
|
| This was just something I built on a whim, but I appreciate
| your comment and took it to heart!
| ggm wrote:
| Maps can be so misleading. It looks like a dredging operation in
| Omani waters could alleviate this, if we'd started decades ago.
|
| Moving to a topographic view, it becomes clear the neck of land
| at "two seas view" is narrow, but tall. It would literally be
| moving a mountain.
|
| Panamax and suezmax boats are smaller than ULCC supertankers.
|
| Ferdinand De Lesseps time has passed. This would be ruinously
| expensive. Better to negotiate with rational intent.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > This would be ruinously expensive.
|
| I bet it could have been done with the money spent on the "war"
| ggm wrote:
| Yes, but in circumstances where no war is in the offing,
| digging a giant hole next to 50km of open water begs
| questions. It would be impossible to get "it's a hedge
| against the future" over the line.
|
| The same to a lesser extent applies to pipes. You could
| construct pipes for gas, for some of the heavier oils and
| crude (what I read suggests pumping crude long distance is
| painful, it has to be down-mixed with lighter stuff to make
| it sufficiently fluid) but the fertilizer? that would mean
| converting dry to wet and back again (nobody ships fluid
| weight if they can avoid it) -Or ship the inputs: ammonia,
| and sulphur in some liquid form, and produce the dry goods on
| the other side.
|
| But, I think pipes have a stronger case than a canal: move
| the things which are amenable to pipes, into pipes, and bury
| the pipes.
|
| In times past, this would have been done as a convoy. China
| and other nations would have stepped to the fore, conducting
| safe passage with their own ships on the outside edge. But
| we're not in a world where this kind of thing works for
| anyone involved. Even offering to cover insurance risk
| doesn't look to have motivated ship owners to pass. (in times
| past, the US wouldn't have put itself or it's allies in this
| position, hence the reference to China)
|
| Don't be fooled by mental images of what a convoy looks like:
| ships like these maintain massive separation. There's almost
| suction between hulls moving at this scale, if they were
| within 500m of each other there'd be chaos if one had to take
| any evasive action. In reality (I believe) even a convoy
| consists of a a lot of discrete, clearly demarked and
| targetable things, not a large mass you can "hide" in.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traffic_separation_sch.
| .. (and a lot of links off this)
| analog31 wrote:
| We could have spent the money on windmills without raising
| any suspicions.
|
| On the other hand, fertilizer is fluid -- either ammonia or
| ureal ammonium nitrate.
| ggm wrote:
| If the fertiliser production has a point in manufacture
| when the fluid is amenable to transport, then for sure,
| that would make sense.
|
| And you are right, if the same amount of capital and
| energy was invested in Solar/Wind as in Oil, we'd be in a
| totally different world. It's cents to dollars,
| considering the size of the tail AND the current
| investment.
|
| Here in Australia the problem is the royalty stream to
| the states. Oil and Gas windfalls when the price of
| equivalent supply (brent crude I believe for oil, not
| sure what LNG world price defines the limit) hits $100 is
| just amazing. The revenue stream to the states is
| enormous. Their motivation to transfer money into
| alternatives, instead of sucking on the teat, is zero.
| States without significant oil revenue seem to do more
| (SA) -States isolated from the national grid seem to do
| more (WA) but a site with both high insolation, and good
| wind, but also massive oil, gas and coal fields (Qld)
| does as little as possible. It's political reductionism.
| The crony economy is huge, Mining funds the government
| and the government reflects mining sector interests over
| all others.
| acomjean wrote:
| It always amazed me they made ships that just fit the Panama
| canal. I went though the locks years ago, it was quite a trip
| (and how a friend got met to go on a cruise)
|
| https://aramcomjean.smugmug.com/Panama-Canal/i-94PDM8F/A
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| It doesn't matter - Israel was able to ethnically cleanse and
| occupy large parts of Southern Lebanon, without undue Iranian
| interference. Mission accomplished for MIGA.
|
| The "Israel First" administration of the US will happily trade
| Iran's permanent control of an international waterway for the
| expansion of Israel.
| stavros wrote:
| I'm not really very up to speed on this, can someone explain how
| the strait is actually closed? Are the Iranians threatening to
| sink any ships that pass by, or what? How come any ships don't
| turn their transponders off and try to make a run for it?
| MattDamonSpace wrote:
| They'll sink ships or cause damage with low cost drones or
| missles
|
| The strait isn't wide enough, Iran can see any ships attempting
| stavros wrote:
| I see, thanks. Looks like the strait is 77 km wide, which
| isn't one ship's width but probably not wide enough that
| binoculars wouldn't see everything.
| cwillu wrote:
| The navigable width where it is deep enough is
| _significantly_ narrower.
| stavros wrote:
| Good point, thanks.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| From what I was reading Iran likely wouldn't sink a civilian
| vessel but because the risk is there due to the threat they
| don't do it because it would violate the contact for their
| maritime insurance, meaning even if you had a brave crew and
| orders to go, you lose all your insurance coverage against the
| loss if something goes wrong.
| roughly wrote:
| > How come any ships don't turn their transponders off and try
| to make a run for it?
|
| Because the cost of failure is death and the crew aren't going
| to risk it, and the other cost of failure is a couple hundred
| million dollars in ship and cargo and the insurance companies
| aren't going to risk it either. This is like asking why your
| DoorDash driver wouldn't just try to run the police blockade to
| get you your burrito.
| megous wrote:
| I'm sure tankers are huge and show up easily on naval radars.
| Quothling wrote:
| Kattegat where I live is probably double the width of Hormuz
| and if you're in a small ship you can probably sail most of
| those 140 km. Not without risk, but you'd be relatively safe
| for the most part. Big ships can't though, so even though there
| might be 50km on each side of them they could potentially have
| a shipping lane which is only a few hundred meters wide.
|
| I can't say that I know anything about Iran, but if we were to
| close our straits off so you couldn't enter the north sea from
| the baltic sea then our navy would rapidly deploy various
| different mines that lay on the bottom on the shallower parts
| and control the shipping lanes with things like suicide drones.
| I imagine Iran would do something similar, only they've
| probably been preparing for it a lot more than we have.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| So apparently the reason they don't just go for it is due to
| insurance. Because Iran technically isn't suppose to just sink a
| civilian vessel, but the risk is there so the ships are ordered
| by the owner/stakeholder not to go due to the insurance coverage.
| Kind of interesting, they could technically call Iran's bluff but
| it would mean, they violate the insurance contract and lose
| coverage? I'm just reading about this so probably not the full
| picture.
| tokai wrote:
| No insurance has been fixed for a while now. Its as simple as
| shipowners not wanting to lose their boats and their future
| earnings potential.
| cwillu wrote:
| And their crews not wanting to lose their lives.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| The capability is very real. And they don't have to sink the
| ship, just one Shahed drone exploding on the deck and
| injuring/killing a sailor is deterrence enough.
| HiroProtagonist wrote:
| The Shahed drone is a 'set it and forget it' device where you
| program a stationary target and launch it. It would not work
| well for moving targets, like ships.
| worik wrote:
| > The Shahed drone is a 'set it and forget it' device where
| you program a stationary target and launch it. It would not
| work well for moving targets, like ships.
|
| The Iranians are quite handy at modifying their drones....
| FpUser wrote:
| Russia has been modifying Shahed drones for quite a while.
| May be they've shared back or Iran got creative on their
| own
| alerter wrote:
| I work for a consultancy that does vessel tracking as one of its
| main products, and yeah it's expensive! afaik they have remote
| teams with sensors at key points and a bunch of people using
| AI/software to manage things like GPS spoofing. So it's all
| pretty guarded proprietary stuff.
|
| Great bit of topical datavis here.
| anonfunction wrote:
| Yeah! The AIS terrain data is expensive, but the good stuff is
| from satellite tracking and out of my budget for silly site I
| built on a whim.
|
| https://i.imgflip.com/aopmmf.jpg
| dr_robert wrote:
| What did you use for the map ? Mapbox ??
| Doohickey-d wrote:
| Looks like it's using leaflet + map tiles from
| https://carto.com/
|
| I think Mapbox also provides a similar looking basemap style.
| anonfunction wrote:
| CartoDB and Leaflet. Source is available here btw:
| https://github.com/montanaflynn/ishormuzopenyet
| pietervdvn wrote:
| As an OpenStreetMap-contributor: you have to add attribution
| as per our license agreement:
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
|
| CartoDB packages this data into tiles you can use, but that
| doesn't lift this requirement.
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| I was implementing OSM the other day (with attribution of
| course) and noticed Carto seemed to be one of the only
| players with good dark tiles.
|
| Seems like we can't use them for free, even with
| attribution, unless I get a grant?
| anonfunction wrote:
| Thank you for this comment, I just fixed it[1], don't know
| why claude code decided to hide it, I actually should have
| known this requirement and checked!
|
| 1. https://github.com/montanaflynn/ishormuzopenyet/commit/7
| 0a8c...
| rc_kas wrote:
| I shorm uzo pen yet also!
| MiSeRyDeee wrote:
| This will be inherently inaccurate because data was based on
| public AIS signal, but ships are turning off their AIS to avoid
| detection.
|
| > In an attempt to evade detection, many ships appear to be
| deliberately switching off their tracking system - known as AIS
| (Automatic Identification System).
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4geg0eeyjeo
| anonfunction wrote:
| Great point and something I didn't consider, I should make a
| big disclaimer it's not meant to be fully accurate or live
| data. Thanks for the comment!
| MiSeRyDeee wrote:
| not to discredit what you've built though, good work!
| anonfunction wrote:
| Another funny thing about this was this morning I checked if the
| domain isthestraitofhormuzopenyet.com was available and it was,
| and by the time I made the site locally, put it on vercel I went
| to buy the domain to point DNS to it someone had bought it! I
| renamed it to the current site url / repo which i think might be
| a little nicer to type, but crazy that we had same idea on
| apparently the same day. I was also just telling a friend about
| simultaneous invention aka multiple discover[1] a few days ago,
| so another case of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon[2]!
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
| soco wrote:
| I was also surprised to see that arewegreatyet.com is in use
| already...
| einpoklum wrote:
| Iran (and various news sources) have claimed that the straights
| are not now, and in fact never have been, closed - provided the
| relevant ship was not involved/linked to the attacks on Iran, and
| that it coordinated with Iranian authorities.
|
| So, it could be that:
|
| * Iran is lying and that has not actually been an option.
|
| * A lot of the ships which would otherwise have transitioned are
| involved with the war somehow.
|
| * The relevant parties have decided not to coordinate transitions
| with Iran, for various reasons
|
| * The data displayed at the link is partial for some reason.
| sethops1 wrote:
| No need for baseless speculation, it's well known that no
| insurance company is willing to insure transit through the
| straight while it's an active war zone.
| spaghetdefects wrote:
| It was mentioned in this thread and quickly flagged, but Israel
| broke the ceasefire today by attacking civilians in Lebanon so
| Iran closed the straight. It was open prior to the ceasefire
| violation.
|
| France's Macron actually just commented on this:
| https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2041990505760772551
| globalnode wrote:
| israels only option is to get america involved since they cant
| achieve their goals by themselves. trump unwittingly got a
| punch in the face last time he let himself get dragged in so
| doubt hell go 100% in again, maybe just lip service attacks to
| try and appease israel while backchannel appologising profusely
| to iran as he does it lol
|
| edit: actually im likely completely wrong, what i wrote above
| is what i hope would be the case but sadly in reality the
| violence will never end and oil prices will go up and up and
| up. this is just a temporary blip. the fighting will continue
| until something more substantial happens to sort it out in
| favour of one side or the other.
| xdennis wrote:
| > Israel broke the ceasefire
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but Israel didn't sign any ceasefire.
| The ceasefire was between Iran and US. Israel separately
| announced (not part of any deal) that it would stop attacking
| Iran. It honored that self-imposed limit. Israel attacked
| Lebanon (Iran's proxy).
| YZF wrote:
| 1. Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon:
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-launches-largest-airstrike...
|
| 2. There is and was no ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel.
| There was no violation of the ceasefire between Iran and the
| US/Israel.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-did-not-agree-...
|
| Macron: "I reiterated the need to preserve Lebanon's
| territorial integrity and France's determination to support the
| efforts of the Lebanese authorities to uphold the country's
| sovereignty and implement the Hezbollah disarmament plan."
|
| So Macron and Israel are perfectly aligned. Both are demanding
| that Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese government will
| assert its sovereignty. Once that happens there will be no need
| for Israel to use force but as long as Israeli civilians are
| bombarded non-stop from Lebanon Israel is going to hit back -
| hard.
| spaghetdefects wrote:
| Israel murdered almost 200 innocent people today. They are
| bombing civilians.
| blobbers wrote:
| IRGC targeting systems have entered the chat.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| I think there's difference between A) whether ships are
| traversing the straight, and B) whether the straight is open /
| closed / could be traversed.
|
| It's very well possible that the straight is safe, but the
| vessels are unnecessarily cautious.
| anonfunction wrote:
| Totally, and I've heard a lot of it comes down to insurance!
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-08/shippers-...
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| The data being ~4 days delayed does kind of make this less
| useful. It is a nice concept and cool to see the historical data
| though. Just think the domain and the large "NO" doesn't really
| fit with the lack of current data.
| anonfunction wrote:
| Totally agree, I put some text and tried to make it clear. My
| first intention was to find some live ship tracking API and see
| how many ships cross the strait, but they were all hundreds of
| dollars a month, and behind enterprise contact forms.
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| I've done some small scale ship tracking in the past, and
| yeah, anything beyond finding a specific ship while it is
| near the shore is stupid expensive.
| anonfunction wrote:
| What do you think of adding prediction market data to the
| indication? So basically there's this:
|
| https://polymarket.com/event/strait-of-hormuz-traffic-return...
|
| My approach would be if that jumps up to 75%+ it would change
| to YES. And if we get into May they have one for then too:
|
| https://polymarket.com/event/strait-of-hormuz-traffic-return...
|
| You can actually see in the last 24 hours it jumped up with the
| ceasefire and Iran saying they would open it and fell back with
| reports it's been shut down again easlier today.
|
| Edit: I added this, I can see a few downvotes, happy to discuss
| here or in the github repo if anyone has strong feelings on it!
| killingtime74 wrote:
| i didnt downvote you but why wouldn't i just go to Polymarket
| directly for this
| anonfunction wrote:
| I mean you obviously could, the url is a little harder to
| remember and it doesn't have crossing data. This was just a
| small fun project I did, so you're free to do whatever you
| like. The reason I thought of using polymarket data is I
| didn't have live ship tracking data which is what I
| originally intended to use.
| elSidCampeador wrote:
| I believe NASA / EU provide daily satellite imagery for free
| (which is of relatively high quality too). I wonder if there's a
| way to take that data, and training some kind of image
| recognition model that figures out "movement" or something to the
| same end? Would be cool to see
| anonfunction wrote:
| Funnily enough, I did find a few satellite sources at the
| beginning for the map background and noticed that all the ships
| seemed to be scrubbed from the image. It's an interesting idea,
| thanks for the comment!
|
| The sources I used were:
|
| - ESRI World Imagery[1] -- free satellite tiles, high-res, but
| ships are stripped out from the imagery
|
| - NASA GIBS - VIIRS[2] -- near real-time daily satellite
| imagery from NASA, but resolution is ~375m so ships aren't
| visible anyway
|
| - Mapbox Satellite[3] -- high-res and looks great, but same
| deal -- ships are scrubbed from the composited imagery
|
| 1.
| https://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_I...
| 2. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/engage/open-data-services-
| softwar... 3. https://www.mapbox.com
| letcree wrote:
| Ai2 has vessel detection models for Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2
| (ESA) along with Landsat 8, Landsat 9, and VIIRS Nighttime
| Lights (NASA/USGS/NOAA):
|
| - Sentinel-2 (10 m/pixel): https://github.com/allenai/rslearn
| _projects/blob/master/docs...
|
| - Landsat (15-30 m/pixel): https://github.com/allenai/rslearn
| _projects/blob/master/docs...
|
| - VIIRS Nighttime Lights: https://github.com/allenai/vessel-
| detection-viirs
|
| I think you can see these vessel detections at
| https://app.skylight.earth/ ("Try out a limited version as a
| guest") but they seem to be delayed by 48 hours.
|
| VIIRS is very low resolution but you can make out vessels
| with reasonable accuracy in the night-time images.
|
| VIIRS covers most locations at least once per day, but the
| other sensors capture a given location only once per 5-10
| days (although when combined, Sentinel-1/Sentinel-2/Landsat
| should provide close-to-daily coverage).
| verdverm wrote:
| There is also a lot of jamming, manipulating, and fake AIS
| broadcasting going on
|
| https://windward.ai/blog/gps-jamming-disrupts-1100-ships-
| in-...
| colechristensen wrote:
| It turns out during a war having real time satellite imagery
| of shipping would be a poor choice.
| namewithhe1d wrote:
| OP, DM me and I'll get you a persistent key for this data. Not
| from MarineTraffic
| anonfunction wrote:
| Wow thanks, there's not really any dm functionality on hn and I
| didn't see a clear social handle in your profile.
| https://github.com/montanaflynn/ has my email.
| HiroProtagonist wrote:
| Very cool thing of you to do.
| nodesocket wrote:
| Aren't ships turning off their AIS when traveling the straight?
| I think https://atlas.flexport.com/ could also be a good
| source.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Cool! Heads up, you're probably running afoul of some TOS by
| hiding the map data attributions.
| anonfunction wrote:
| Ahh, thanks I'll remedy that now, wasn't intentional I'll blame
| Claude.
| foresterre wrote:
| According to the Financial Times (1), the straight is "open" but
| Iran is extorting fees for passing ships.
|
| > "Iran will demand that shipping companies pay tolls in
| cryptocurrency for oil tankers passing through the Strait of
| Hormuz, as it seeks to retain control over passage through the
| key waterway during the two-week ceasefire."
|
| If they really will start doing so for all shipping, that would
| be odd since the straight itself is in Oman's territorial waters.
| Even so, the UNCLOS convention (2) requires free transit:
|
| > Article 44 > Duties of States bordering straits > > States
| bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage and shall give
| appropriate publicity to any danger to navigation or overflight
| within or over the strait of which they have knowledge. There
| shall be no suspension of transit passage.
|
| It would be unprecedented and unlawful, but I guess previous
| actions of Israel, the US and Iran have shown our world is beyond
| adhering to laws and agreements now.
|
| (1)
| https://www.ft.com/content/02aefac4-ea62-48db-9326-c0da373b1...
| (2) United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea:
| https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Oman and Iran are splitting the fees RE: the statements by
| Iran.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But collected by Iran, not by Oman. Which is weird, if it's
| really Oman's territorial waters.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| And Trump.
|
| Didn't Trump float the Idea of a joint venture with Iran on
| the Fees?
|
| Amazing, that once you could make money on a toll, Trump was
| "there is profit in peace? lets get this peace thing going"
| anonfunction wrote:
| It's super hard to tell what's actually happening. Because I've
| seen other reports that Iran state media halted traffic earlier
| today, as reported by Washington Post[1]:
|
| > With Trump and Iran each claiming victory, but still far
| apart on key issues, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remained
| at a standstill Wednesday.
|
| 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/04/08/trump-
| iran-w...
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| That's because Israel killed hundreds of civilians in Lebanon
| today.
| amusingimpala75 wrote:
| Missed opportunity for "arewehormuzyet.com"
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| This is a nice overview, but please remove the PolyMarket
| indicator. It is an obscene prediction mechanism as it creates
| horrible financial incentives to a war situation. Its degenerate
| effects have been featured here before. [1]
|
| Let's not condone "measurements" that are effectively ways for
| people to gain money on important political decisions, affecting
| the lives of many people.
|
| (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47397822
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| > "obscene"
|
| And yet, it is the wisdom of the crowds. The crowds being
| obscene.
|
| Aren't we all constantly hitting re-fresh for updates, and
| making predictions.
|
| The prediction markets are just consolidating that 'desire'.
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| Well, it would be if everyone betting wouldn't have an
| influence on the outcome. That's "wisdom of the crowds". But
| what if the people putting money on the Strait being closed
| are the same that close them? Surely, that's no longer the
| wisdom of the crowds at play. Just perverse incentives.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I agree. Maybe an un-expected outcome.
|
| Who could have foreseen that a government/person would
| actually blatantly start a war, and manipulate bombing
| raids in order to manipulate a market, without being
| charged with a crime himself.
|
| In sports betting, it seems obvious if a player throws a
| game.
|
| In a war? Surely nobody would do this, right? Who could
| imagine it.
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| You don't have to imagine some giant conspiracy. Fact is,
| that everyone can make a bet, and there are a lot of
| people with knowledge and influence in the political
| decisions made.
|
| In sports, at least the outcome is only effected by the
| sportsmen. Here, who knows which and how many people have
| inside knowledge and influence that they can use that to
| their financial advantage?
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yeah. I have to agree. My view has changed in last week.
|
| I never imagined that markets could be so corrupted by
| those in power, without some other consequences somehow
| balancing out. Like being arrested, or removed from
| office.
|
| Forget PolyMarket. We literally have bets being made on
| oil futures, directly before a tweet by the president.
| Openly profiting on direct minute by minute manipulation.
| Openly corrupt.
| antonvs wrote:
| > Who could have foreseen
|
| Economists. They even have a term for this, dating back
| to the late 1800s: "moral hazard".
|
| Polymarket creates moral hazard when participants can
| profit from outcomes they can influence.
| verdverm wrote:
| > In sports betting, it seems obvious if a player throws
| a game.
|
| On the other hand, since you can bet on individual
| pitches, you no longer have to throw the game, just the
| right pitch at the right time.
|
| https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46917665/mlb-betting-
| gua...
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/two-current-major-
| leagu...
|
| The focus on making money above all else, as a cultural
| dynamic, is degrading the human experience. It
| increasingly seeps into more aspects of our lives and is
| part of the broader Trustpocalypse.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Putting bounties on people's heads and public lynchings are
| the wisdom of crowds and its obscenity in action.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Humans need entertainment.
|
| Running Man was a prediction, coming true.
| nodesocket wrote:
| By this logic would you also consider trading OIL (USO) and
| Palantir a "obscene" market.
| foxes wrote:
| Yes
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| objectively so
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| Actually yes. I put my money in things I would like to see
| shape the future, which I think is what investment should be
| about: shaping the future.
|
| But disregarding this admittedly niche attitude; it's not the
| same thing. If you're opening bets on the ships being bombed
| before a certain date, you're opening incentives for people
| to do so. Although buying OIL or Palantir is morally
| questionable, it does not create such direct incentives.
| nodesocket wrote:
| Shaping the future for "good" is not investing. That is ESG
| and if you value capital and capital appreciation ESG has
| been proven not to be a solid strategy. See also altruistic
| capitalism with such moral people as Sam Bankman-Fried,
| Elizabeth Holmes, Trevor Milton and Adam Neumann. Solid
| list of moral people shaping the future.
| sharmajai wrote:
| Who said investing is _only_ for "capital and capital
| appreciation"? It can also be for social good.
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| Wow. I am not sure how to respond to this as you seem to
| have a completely different mindset. You mean to say it
| is "proven" not to be a solid strategy as in not
| maximizing profit?
|
| Surely, you acknowledge that funding something is a
| rather direct way of actively supporting it. It is your
| money and your choice of what you choose to invest it in,
| and thus how you choose to shape the future. If you buy
| OIL to make money, you are still responsible for the
| additional investment made in oil, and are still shaping
| the future, whether you like it or not.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| The ticker is USO, not OIL, and it's abundantly clear
| that you have no idea how it works.
| nodesocket wrote:
| > It is your money and your choice of what you choose to
| invest it in, and thus how you choose to shape the
| future.
|
| Absolutely, but I believe you are conflating investing vs
| donating. The literal definition of investing is:
|
| > Allocating money (or capital) with the expectation of
| generating a return or profit over time.
| trhway wrote:
| >you're opening incentives for people to do so
|
| how about short-selling of stocks, isn't it the same thing?
| I'd even argue that sinking one ship affects say 10 people
| of the crew who most probable will survive in the warm Gulf
| waters whereis sinking a company may affect many people
| life outcomes probably causing a number of indirect deaths.
| CDS of 2008 would be similar example.
|
| >buying OIL or Palantir is morally questionable, it does
| not create such direct incentives
|
| it creates direct incentives to suppress competitors - wind
| and solar energy for OIL, and whoever Palantir competitors
| are.
|
| Wrt. "Hormuz open" - does the "open" definition includes
| the new fee Iran would be taking for the strait traverse
| (something like $1/barrel, nice for Iran, how come that
| they had't implemented such an idea before? one can only
| wonder)
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| > how about short-selling of stocks, isn't it the same
| thing?
|
| Yes. That's why it's illegal to short-sell your stocks
| just before you announce that your company is broke.
|
| There are no such regulations when betting on a bomb
| dropping on a boat.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Oil futures or any other commodity purchase that doesn't
| result in the buyer taking actual physical ownership of what
| they purchase is an obscene gambling market with perverse
| incentives yes correct.
| isubkhankulov wrote:
| How will commodity producers (oil companies, farmers) hedge
| their risk / stabilize their prices without speculators and
| their "perverse incentives"?
| DaedalusII wrote:
| banana brains like OP will design a government that
| doesnt have natural price discovery and we will all end
| up driving Lada and with unstable prices and hunger
| broken-kebab wrote:
| We will gather special people, very wise, and completely
| honest. They'll form a committee, and we will call it
| Gosplan, comrade!
| DaedalusII wrote:
| by this logic investing in SAFEs is obscene gambling with
| perverse incentives and we should shut down the venture
| capital industry
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| Yep
| antonvs wrote:
| Why would you not? Unless you literally don't care about
| damaging our planet and civilization in the interests of your
| own personal profit.
| colechristensen wrote:
| At this point efficient pricing of energy is a strong
| _motivator_ for environmental causes. Solar is ridiculously
| cheaper than fossil fuels and not subject to geopolitical
| risk. And once you have solar panels you 've got energy for
| decades.
|
| Carbon-related environmentalism and greed now go hand in
| hand.
| auntienomen wrote:
| The problem with prediction markets is fundamentally that
| they're unregulated.
|
| Modern equities and futures markets are highly evolved and
| rather carefully regulated systems. We've spent centuries
| learning what the failure modes are and how to guard against
| them. It's never perfect, it's never going to be perfect --
| it's fundamentally a voting system -- but in general, we get
| liquidity and price discovery at a relatively low cost, while
| avoiding fraudulent and evil behavior like wash trading and
| criminal profit laundering.
|
| These new "prediction markets" have been put in place without
| any of those hard-earned protections. And surprise, they're
| rife with dirty trick and dirty money.
| nodesocket wrote:
| Agree 100% that prediction markets are the wild-wild-west
| with no insider trading protections, pump and dump, and no
| oversight. It's perverting the wisdom of the crowd and
| efficient market thesis.
| DaedalusII wrote:
| why dont UK start enforcing the Marine Insurance Act 1745 to
| combat this or the Life insurance act maybe 1775
|
| this law literally make it illegal to gamble on marine risk
| that you do not have direct economic interest in
| colechristensen wrote:
| Are they? Is there a prediction market available in the UK
| which allows you to place these bets? They're regulated like
| gambling there.
| zeofig wrote:
| I agree polymarket is "bad", but it's also highly relevant and
| should absolutely be included in this web page.
| afavour wrote:
| Why is it highly relevant? It's a bunch of people betting on
| the outcome.
| furyofantares wrote:
| I've spent years watching prediction markets and finding
| them to be, by a wide margin, the most accurate way for me
| to understand the world. It is not remotely close.
|
| It sucks that they're going mainstream, providing
| incentives to bad actors to profit from their power, and it
| sucks that they've gone so heavily for the predatory
| gambling market to boot.
|
| I really hate this duality.
| verdverm wrote:
| > the most accurate way for me to understand the world
|
| Are you sure it's not survivorship bias or similar? I've
| seen multiple trend lines that are very confident only to
| switch to the opposite outcome at the very end.
| pgodzin wrote:
| Are you sure you're not the one seeing the survivorship
| bias? Something that is 10% likely to happen ends up
| switching to the opposite outcome at the very end 1/10
| times. There are thousands of prediction markets up at
| any given time, so there are going to be plenty of
| examples of unlikely events happening.
|
| But there is plenty of research on how well-calibrated
| they are. For example, https://polymarket.com/accuracy
| verdverm wrote:
| Prediction markets, like many other micro-
| financialization trends, is unhealthy for society. I'm
| not going to trust research from the very company selling
| the product. History provides ample examples of how that
| works without the need to gamble on it.
|
| I would invite you to look into the statistics on
| foreclosures, bankruptcy, and gambling hotline traffic
| which compare jurisdictions that have allowed this stuff
| vs not. Those with demographic breakdowns help to show
| those most at risk.
| voidfunc wrote:
| People don't matter, only outcomes
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Very cool. I agree with some others that the YES/NO is confusing
| since we actually don't know due to the lag.
|
| And wtf is a _fishing_ ship from Panama doing in the middle of
| the straight?
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