Resolves YES if at the end of July, to my judgment, the consensus of reporting indicates that it is more likely than not that the Iranian nuclear site of Fordow has been put out of commission, through air strikes, sabotage, etc.
Inspired by @PeterWildeford ’s blog post:
and reporting from mainstream media such as Axios:
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/14/iran-nuclear-facilities-fordow-israel-strike
Update 2025-06-14 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): A commitment or deal to put Fordow out of commission is not sufficient for a YES resolution. There must be consensus reporting that the site is actually out of commission (e.g. "Fordow has halted centrifuges and is under UN monitoring currently").
Update 2025-06-15 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): A distinction is made between the plant being out of commission versus being temporarily paused during negotiations.
An example of what would likely resolve YES is reporting that it is “confirmed by UN inspectors that no enrichment is currently taking place”.
An example of what would resolve NO is reporting that “Iran has said they will pause enrichment while brokering a ceasefire”.
Update 2025-06-15 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to a question about a potential deal for Iran to dismantle the facility, the creator clarified:
There would be a high bar for a YES resolution in such a scenario.
A deal to stop using or dismantle the facility is not sufficient on its own.
Resolution requires literal reporting that the facility has been decommissioned.
1,000
3.00“It is clear that Fordow was also directly impacted, but the degree of damage inside the uranium enrichment halls can’t be determined with certainty,” Director General Grossi said.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-on-developments-in-iran-5
Holy shit someone should trade on this info because I can’t:
https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1934388439065211310?s=46&t=62uT9IruD1-YP-SHFkVEPg
Seems pretty difficult: https://www.axios.com/2025/06/14/iran-nuclear-facilities-fordow-israel-strike
@nathanwei umm, only if consensus reporting indicates its actually “out of commission”, not just “committed to be” or something. Like, an article being like “Fordow has halted centrifuges and is under UN monitoring currently” or something.
@bens OK, so we need more details what does & doesn't count. It's very possible that Iran will agree to some deal that involves inspections, but exactly what do we need the inspectors to confirm? Is "no ongoing uranium enrichment" enough?
@AhronMaline I don’t want to over-specify but anything that to my judgment means the plant is “out of commission”, and not just “paused during negotiations” or something. Like, “confirmed by UN inspectors that no enrichment is currently taking place” would probably qualify but “Iran has said they will pause enrichment while brokering a ceasefire” or something would not.
@bens I don't like the direction this moved in, I sold off. Can we get a market for whether the facility will actually be incapacitated? "Rendered inoperable by foreign actors" That's the important question for the wildeford forecasts. "Confirmed by UN" etc. falls under the deal scenario and is uninteresting
@FergusArgyll there’d be a high bar, tbh. Not just a deal to stop using it, but literal reporting that it has been decommissioned or something would obviously qualify as “out of commission”, no?
@bens It's a tough one, and traders have presumably traded based on your comments already.
I would prefer a straight up "Will US with MOPS or Israel with a newfangled device / commando raid, destroy fordow" which I would definitely bet NO at these prices.
But I think there might be a better middle ground where put out of commission should be interpreted as "To make it work again would require a lot of work & ~ 6+ months".
This would exclude the cases where the Iranians pause enrichment (even if confirmed by iaea / un) but the facilities remain. It would, however, include the case where Iran, say, removes the centrifuges, converts the facility to something else or anything such that making it enrich uranium again would require some threshold of work and time