Polymarket, the predictive betting platform, has just completed the largest fundraising ever for a crypto company: $2 billion in a single round. The money comes from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Why such a large investment?
Polymarket breaks the record for the largest fundraising round: $2 billion
November 5, 2024, Polymarket is at the top. The platform exploded during Donald Trump’s election campaign. On election night, the polling institutes gave the two candidates neck and neck. However, on the platform, still unknown to the general public, the winner was clear: Donald Trump, with more than 60% of the vote.
What followed was historic. Donald Trump launched the bull run of 2025 and “legalized” cryptocurrencies in the United States, ending four years of repression. For Polymarket, however, it was a disaster. The platform was banned in many countries because it violated betting rules.
This did not prevent Polymarket from growing. Volumes declined after the campaign, but the platform did not disappear. It managed to maintain its position, becoming a new generation media outlet. Its “predictions,” published on X and relayed by a large number of users, largely replaced polls on Elon Musk’s platform.
Polymarket had already raised $55 million before the election, as revealed by the platform’s founder Shayne Coplan on X:
Before the election, Blockchain Capital led a $55 million funding round for Polymarket, valuing us at $350 million.
Among these early investors were Coinbase, numerous figures from the American tech world, and notably Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.
The latter, with his investment fund, was also behind a second round of fundraising that took place in 2025. The result: $150 million and a new valuation of $1.2 billion. With the $2 billion invested by Intercontinental Exchange, the company is now valued at $9 billion. Not bad for a startup founded in 2020, during Covid-19, by a young American who was 22 at the time.
Why such interest in Polymarket?
The Wild West of online betting. With no safeguards or regulations, Polymarket allows you to bet on World War III, the results of Roland Garros, the number of times Donald Trump will say the word “Bitcoin” during a speech, or the peace agreements between Israel and Hamas.
But don’t be fooled. Polymarket has quickly established itself as a genuine media outlet. Widely promoted by Elon Musk, it claims to provide authentic, unbiased information, fueled solely by “the truth”; that is, the voice of the people expressed through dollar-pegged stablecoins (USDC).
In the United States, where mainstream media is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of confidence, it feeds into so-called alternative information channels.
However, Polymarket is not just a source of information for “conspiracy” networks, as some journalists claim. It generates mountains of usable data. Each piece of data goes through a cryptocurrency bet, and therefore through the blockchain. As a result, the data cannot be falsified.
Of course, a user can influence the vote with a lot of money, but it is impossible to spam, attack, or manipulate these figures—in theory.
This power has attracted Intercontinental Exchange. Presented as a “global leader in technology and data provision,” the company intends to distribute Polymarket data to its customers and professionals.
This intention was confirmed by Shayne Coplan on X:
Our partnership with ICE [Intercontinental Exchange, editor’s note] marks a major step forward in the integration of prediction markets into the traditional financial sector.
This investment cements the position of blockchain companies in the global economic landscape. Whatever niche they occupy, blockchain-based solutions are revolutionary.
