Caracas Chronicles

Markets are moving, and all bets are off as to what the next chapter for Venezuela will be. The country’s debt has had a terrific year so far and will likely continue to make headlines in the weeks to come. At the same time, new alternative sources of information have been working in tandem, narrowing traders’ perspectives toward specific potential scenarios.

Venezuela’s presence in the international bond market is represented by two main issuers: Venezuelan sovereign debt and PDVSA-issued bonds. In this analysis, we will refer to Venezuela’s debt as the combination of both sovereign and PDVSA bonds, making distinctions when necessary. Market participants and observers generally expect both issuers to receive similar treatment in the event of recovery or restructuring negotiations, which is why they are often referenced together. However, it is important to note that we will exclude the issues used as collateral for CITGO (mainly PDVSA 2020), as the ongoing acquisition and litigation saga surrounding these bonds has caused their behavior to diverge substantially from the rest of the pack.

This ‘dual’ listing is standard practice for countries with nationalized industries, despite how closely tied the risk of these two issuers might be. PDVSA and sovereign bonds began to default in 2017, but neither went through the usual restructuring process. Venezuela lacked international credibility, political will, and financial capacity, and was effectively sanctioned out of international markets, making any debt negotiation unfeasible. This dynamic is key to understanding how Venezuelan debt is priced and what it reveals about international markets’ perception of the situation on the ground.

Investing in Venezuela’s debt is as speculative as financial markets get. Hopes for a potential payoff rely on the country’s ability to be able to sit down in a serious negotiation with bondholders. To be able to do so, a credible counterpart that shows political will, genuine interest to rejoin financial markets, and some respect for the rule of law needs to join the table, something that the current administration lacks.

In a nutshell, investors in Venezuela’s debt are betting on a major shift in U.S.–Venezuela relations that would allow the country to reenter international financial markets.

But more importantly, that situation requires U.S. sanction relief, as well as support from the American banking system and international financial organizations to help this costly process take shape.

Resolving the debt issue is also key to restoring international financing and normalizing relations with the West. Despite all the grand talk last year ahead of the elections, Maduro & Co. made an attempt to reenter the market arena. Reports surfaced that they had hired an investment bank to review the country’s debt, while lobbyists held meetings in London. The prospect of resolving these bonds may have motivated international lobbyists to pressure the U.S. administration to normalize relations after the election. However, the election’s outcome and its aftermath froze any momentum toward a swift resolution under Maduro. 

Warships push prices up

In a nutshell, investors in Venezuela’s debt are betting on a major shift in U.S.–Venezuela relations that would allow the country to reenter international financial markets. For some, that would only be possible through regime change in Caracas. Despite oil continuing to be an important factor, it’s geopolitics that runs the show now. 

Bonds started the year trading at around 11-16 cents on the dollar and haven’t looked back since. They went up during the tense early January period, after the prisoner swap, the Guacamayas’ escape, and Chevron’s latest waver. Prices on Venezuela’s bonds have now reached 21–25 cents, delivering a staggering 80% year-to-date return in some cases. These levels mark highs not seen since early 2019, when Guaidó and Trump resorted to “maximum pressure” tactics.

However, zooming in on the last three months, the price return of all Venezuelan debt sits at an average of 39.5%. Kicking off with Chevron’s return in July, the August rumours and confirmation about the U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean, strikes on drug trafficking boats, oil output data for September—and lastly, Shell’s latest Dragón gas deal and congressional debate on military actions have all been market movers. Investors are starting to price in something that could lead to Venezuela returning to the international market dynamics. What that something might be, and when it could unfold, are of course hard to gauge.

All credit-risk-bearing bonds carry a credit spread, from which investors can derive a probability of default and recovery. However, for defaulted bonds the implied probability is harder to forecast, given they are subject to unknown haircuts and recovery times. In such cases, the bond price reflects the expected recovery adjusted for risk.

Polymarket offers a range of Venezuela-related scenarios for speculation, providing interesting insights into the implied odds of what its users believe might—or might not—happen next in the country.

Put simply, for defaulted bonds, a higher price signals a higher expectation of recovery, given an anticipated haircut. Therefore, it is hard to work out the implied probability that the market is pricing on that something that would result in Venezuela being allowed to sit in the negotiation to restructure the debt.

What is clear, however, is that the market is pricing in a higher likelihood of recovery, which has, in turn, driven prices up.

Maria Corina and the betting market

This is where financial innovation or innovative gambling—depending how you want to see it—comes into play. Websites like Polymarket allow investors to trade positions in real-life events given pre-defined potential outcomes. These sites have come a long way from obscurity for everyday punters to getting serious interest from established institutions. On October 7, it was reported that Polymarkets received a two-billion dollar investment from the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

What sets these sites apart from ordinary betting platforms is that they operate on a decentralized system, allowing users to buy and sell positions against one another rather than against the house. These options help infer the implied probability that market participants assign to these events. However, complications arise because each position requires a counterparty, and severe liquidity constraints make it difficult to trade in and out of positions, resulting in high volatility for certain odds.

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Corina Machado made the news due to the behaviour of the Polymarket odds. Machado had a winning probability of around 3.5% around 12 hours prior to the announcement. Then, it shot up to a 73% probability of Machado taking the prize. This led to speculation that information was leaked, giving some traders room to cash in on bets in her favour. The ability of the site to “predict” an outcome, in this case, seems to be no more than information asymmetry. Someone out there had better (insider) intelligence, and simply traded on that information. 

This opens a debate on the morality, legality, and even the technical aspects of the execution. But certainly, these markets can be used as an alternative source of information that provide interesting insights into hyperspecific scenarios. Whether information gets leaked or not, they are a live aggregation of what participants believe will happen.

Investors, gamblers, speculators—however you want to call them—are voting on what the next chapter of this saga will bring. It is now up to reality to weigh in. 

Polymarket offers a range of Venezuela-related scenarios for speculation, providing interesting insights into the implied odds of what its users believe might—or might not—happen next in the country. These scenarios assign odds to events such as the next narco-boat strike (99% by October 31), U.S. military engagement (23% by December 2025), a potential invasion of Venezuela in 2025 (12%), Maduro and Trump talks in 2025 (18%), and even the return of Edmundo González (4%).

Many of these scenarios are relatively new and trade on low liquidity, which makes them highly volatile but make for interesting insights given the relatively straightforward payout for punters. Yes/no options allow interested parties to focus on hyperspecific, binary events. For instance, Maduro doesn’t have to fall for a bet on the next narco-boat strike to pay off. 

As for any market, these are not perfect and remain subject to bias, traders’ emotion and liquidity concerns. Most crucial of all is information asymmetry, which makes sites like Polymarket among the first to signal certain news. Nevertheless, how these odds move is a good thermostat of what the participants’ perception of the situation is leading up to its resolution (expiry date). Allowing for more specialized bets, supported by stronger regulation, could offer deeper insights into public perceptions of potential scenarios and serve as a valuable source of alternative data.

As the economist and author Benjamin Graham would put it, “in the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”

Investors, gamblers, speculators—however you want to call them—are voting on what the next chapter of this saga will bring. It is now up to reality to weigh in. Neither buying Venezuelan debt nor placing wagers on betting sites is for the faint-hearted, but both reveal a great deal about how the country is perceived by those willing—and able—to put their money where their mouth is.