Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by July 31?

physical possibility meets operational reality. The six-month mine clearance estimate cited by U.S. officials and maritime underwriters is the binding constraint, and July 31 sits right at the near edge of that range. Which means YES resolution requires essentially everything to go right, immediately. Hostilities would need to wind down now, clearance operations would need to begin at scale within days, and the process would need to proceed without the delays that typically characterize multinational mine countermeasure operations in contested waterways. That's a narrow corridor. The insurance market compounds the timeline problem. Even if physical clearance proceeds on an accelerated schedule, commercial operators need coverage restoration before traffic normalizes — and underwriters historically lag physical certification by weeks, sometimes longer. That lag alone could push normalization past July 31 even in a scenario where the clearance operation itself succeeds on time. What separates the July contract from the June contract isn't the fundamental thesis — it's the margin. June was essentially asking for a miracle. July is asking for flawless execution of a difficult but not impossible operational sequence. That's a meaningfully different analytical question, which is why the market prices it higher without treating it as a base case. The Kalshi parallel markets telling you normalization doesn't reach majority probability until later in the summer is the most honest read of the aggregate. July 31 is the first date where the question gets genuinely interesting — but interesting isn't the same as likely.