14 Milliarden, die New York Stock Exchange hat in das weltweit beliebteste "Online-Casino" investiert.
On October 10th, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. When there were still 12 hours until the award ceremony, a trader placed a large bet on Polymarket, directly boosting Machado's probability of winning from less than 5% to nearly 70%, and led a group of netizens to earn substantial profits.
Polymarket, which provides trading support for this bet, is jokingly referred to as the world's hottest "online casino". Operating under the model of "prediction market + cryptocurrency betting", it quickly gained popularity among retail and institutional investors globally after its establishment in 2020. Since the beginning of this year, an average of over 300,000 users and $1 billion have been betting on the "future" on the platform each month.
Recently, Polymarket completed its largest financing round since its establishment. The Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, made a strategic investment of $2 billion in Polymarket at a post - investment valuation of over $9 billion.
Through this investment, ICE obtained the rights to access and distribute all event - driven data generated on the Polymarket platform and will cooperate with Polymarket on future tokenization plans.
01. What is a prediction market?
Before getting to know Polymarket, let's briefly introduce the "prediction market".
The concept of the prediction market can be traced back to the 16th century. Initially, it was a kind of folk "voting" mechanism for predicting the results of papal elections. Since the 1950s, this concept has gradually developed into a branch of economic research.
Today, the prediction market is also known as "idea futures", "event derivatives", or "information markets". It has become a widely recognized and effective method for aggregating public opinions and predicting event outcomes.
In short, each prediction in the prediction market is a binary contract with a "yes" or "no" conclusion for a future question that can be externally verified.
Participants bet on a certain outcome of an event by purchasing "shares" linked to that outcome with tokens. These shares can be traded on the market like stocks.
The market price generated through trading can be regarded as the market participants' judgment of the probability of a certain outcome occurring.
Those who make correct predictions will receive economic rewards, while those who make incorrect predictions will lose their funds. This economic incentive encourages participants to collect and analyze the most accurate information and place bets rationally, thus making the market price approach the real probability.
The CEO of Kalshi, another prediction market platform in the United States, said in an interview that regardless of whether prediction markets exist, people will bet on election results, but they do so through financial products such as stocks, dollars, and gold. The emergence of prediction markets allows people to directly bet on the results of specific events without having to bet on the affected events through this result.
02. The growth path of Polymarket
After talking about the prediction market, let's take a look at Polymarket, the protagonist of this transaction.
Founded in 2020, Polymarket is a prediction market betting platform based on cryptocurrency trading. Users can use stablecoins to place bets on the results of real - world events such as elections, sports event results, and social hotspots on the platform and receive cryptocurrency rewards when their predictions are correct.
With the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies, Polymarket has grown into one of the fastest - growing startups in the decentralized finance field in the past few years. The company disclosed that the total value of trading events on the platform in the first half of this year exceeded $6 billion.
At the capital level, Polymarket has been favored by top Silicon Valley venture capital firms since its inception.
A few months after its establishment, the company received a $4 million seed - round financing led by Polychain Capital. Subsequently, it completed a $25 million Series A financing led by General Catalyst and a $55 million Series B financing co - led by Founders Fund under Peter Thiel and Blockchain Capital, with its valuation rising to $350 million. It is worth noting that Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, also participated in the early - stage investment.
In the second half of 2024, as the prediction market became extremely popular during the US presidential election, Polymarket's influence further expanded. In August this year, the company completed a new round of $150 million financing led by Founders Fund, with its valuation exceeding $1.2 billion. This round of financing attracted more heavy - weight investors, including Point72, Coinbase, Travis Kalanick, the co - founder of Uber, and Joe Gebbia, the co - founder of Airbnb.
However, even though it is highly sought after by capital, Polymarket has not had a smooth journey. Since its birth, Polymarket has been labeled as an "illegal gambling" platform and has been operating on the verge of the legal red line.
In January 2022, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Polymarket $1.4 million and forced it to shut down its services in the US market. When reporting this news at that time, the media described Polymarket's business as a "crypto betting service".
In November 2024, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the home of Shayne Coplan, the founder of Polymarket, on the charge of "allegedly allowing US gamblers to place bets on the website".
So far, Polymarket still faces significant controversy. It is regarded as an illegal gambling platform and access to it is prohibited in at least countries such as Switzerland, France, Poland, Singapore, and Belgium.
03. Where is the value of the prediction market? Why does the New York Stock Exchange invest?
As a strictly regulated financial giant, ICE has always been cautious and conservative in its investment decisions. Why would it invest in such a controversial company?
This is related to the relaxation of regulations on the one hand and the unique value hidden in Polymarket on the other hand.
Let's start with the relaxation of regulations.
After Trump took office, he opened the door wide for the cryptocurrency market. In July this year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's charges against Polymarket were revoked. Subsequently, Donald Trump Jr. invested in Polymarket through his 1789 Capital and was hired as the company's strategic advisor.
Donald Trump Jr.'s investment also directly indicates the current US government's overall support for the prediction market and cryptocurrencies. This laid the groundwork for ICE's investment.
Now, let's talk about the value of Polymarket.
In the official statement released by ICE, it was mentioned that through this transaction, ICE will obtain the rights to access and distribute all event - driven data generated on the Polymarket platform. These event - driven data are precisely the core value of Polymarket and the core purpose of the buyer in this transaction.
The market's recognition of event - driven data stems from its accurate prediction in the 2024 US presidential election. When almost all traditional media polls showed that Harris was leading Trump comprehensively, the data from the prediction market always indicated that Trump had a higher probability of winning, and the final result also verified the prediction of the prediction market.
Donald Trump Jr. also posted that the prediction market allows people to break through the biased narratives of traditional media and the noise of so - called expert opinions by betting on the results they truly believe in.
Since then, event - driven data has begun to receive close attention from the mainstream market. Supporters believe that event - driven data can more accurately reflect the trend of the real world because the participants in the prediction need to bear their own profits and losses. The profits brought by correct bets can encourage participants to make more cautious and well - founded judgments, thus reflecting the real collective wisdom.
That is to say, these real - time updated event - driven data reflect people's judgments on the probability of future events occurring in the form of prices.
Currently, the average number of prediction events on the Polymarket platform has reached nearly 14,000 per month, covering predictions closely related to the financial market, including election results of various governments, macro - policy decisions, geopolitics, and macro - economic data. And the prediction based on each event can become a dynamic indicator to measure collective beliefs and risk sentiments.
Image source: Screenshot from the official website of Polymarket
The timeliness, market - driven nature, and quantifiability of these dynamic indicators presented in the form of probabilities and prices cannot be provided by traditional data statistics (such as CPI, election polls, and market sentiment surveys).
For participants in the financial market, such dynamic data have extremely high analytical value. For example, macro - traders can use market pricing such as "the probability of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 50 basis points in December is 7%" to adjust their bond or foreign exchange positions; risk managers can dynamically hedge supply - chain risks by tracking the probabilities of geopolitical or policy changes. These real - time changes form a new type of forward - looking indicator that can complement traditional financial signals such as implied volatility like VIX and credit spreads (CDS).
It should be noted that ICE itself is also a financial data service provider, offering a large amount of market data such as bond, credit derivative, and futures pricing. The event - driven data obtained through this investment in Polymarket represent a new monetizable area.
ICE can sell these dynamic data to market participants such as hedge funds, investment banks, governments, media, and enterprises in the form of packages, licenses, or integration into institutional - level analysis systems.
On the other hand, investing in Polymarket is also a strategic move to lay out for the era of asset tokenization. Asset tokenization refers to the digitalization and tradability of real - world financial assets in the form of blockchain. As the regulatory framework becomes clearer, global financial institutions are competing to explore how to migrate traditional financial products to the blockchain.
Polymarket has a mature blockchain architecture and a real user base, providing ICE with a low - risk test field to test how to tokenize event contracts and data assets on the blockchain in a compliant environment.
This means that ICE's investment in Polymarket is not only a bet on an emerging data platform but also a move to seize the high - ground of future financial infrastructure.
From a "decentralized betting platform" to a "financial information infrastructure", the rise of Polymarket not only symbolizes the maturity of crypto - finance but also reveals a paradigm shift in the data production mode.
When market pricing begins to reflect people's collective judgments about the future, "prediction" is no longer just a speculative behavior but has become a tradable cognitive asset. The future of the prediction market still faces regulatory tests, but the direction it represents is clear: information is being capitalized, beliefs are being quantified, and the future is being made tradable.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Beyond J Curve". Author: Song Zixiang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.