Dispatches from the trading floor carry an unsettling confidence: prediction markets now place a 66% probability that Iran's Supreme Leader position changes hands before January 1, 2045, with the Kalshi exchange recording nearly $114,000 in single-day volume on the question. That is not a whisper of possibility — it is a working assumption baked into real money. Ali Khamenei, who has held the post since 1989, is in his mid-eighties, and the clerical establishment has never publicly stress-tested a succession mechanism under modern geopolitical pressure. Market consensus suggests the transition is likelier than not within roughly two decades, a timeframe short enough to rattle oil markets, recalibrate Gulf security arrangements, and force Washington and Beijing alike to reassess longstanding calculations about Tehran. The identity of any successor — whether a hardline cleric, a pragmatist, or a figure yet to emerge from the Assembly of Experts — would reshape sanctions diplomacy and proxy network dynamics from Beirut to Sanaa overnight.