North Korea Polymarket Prediction Odds: Kim Jong Un’s Appearance Did Not Settle Leadership Fears

On October 19, Kim Jong Un attended a clothing and footwear exhibition with his daughter, North Korean state media reported the next day, a public appearance that followed unsupported social media claims that he had died, fallen into a coma or been hospitalized in Beijing. NK News described the claims, spread on X by at least two popular anti-Chinese Communist Party accounts, as unfounded. The appearance lowered Polymarket odds that Kim will cease to be North Korea’s supreme leader before the end of 2026; that contract tracks a leadership change by December 31, 2026, not merely whether he was alive at the event.