00:00Today on Forbes, meet the 26-year-old building a billion-dollar prediction marketplace.
00:08What are the chances that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat former President Trump
00:11in November?
00:12On a blockchain-based website called PolyMarket, Harris' chances, according to the thousands
00:18betting, as of Thursday, are put at 44%, while Trump's are at 54%, with Michelle Obama and
00:26RFK Jr. at about 1%.
00:29Will J.D. Vance be replaced as Trump's VP nominee?
00:32A $100 bet will return $1,000 if Vance bows out.
00:38Welcome to the future of betting markets, where nearly anything can be wagered on, from
00:43Bitcoin's peak price in 2024, to the speed at which Trump and Biden climb stairs, to
00:48the sex of Haley and Justin Bieber's new baby.
00:52On PolyMarket, some $472 million is currently being wagered on the outcome of the presidential
00:58election in November.
01:00Never mind that in the United States, betting on the outcome of elections is prohibited,
01:04according to the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, which deems it against the public
01:08interest.
01:09PolyMarket, whose headquarters is in New York City, is a prediction market phenom, thanks
01:15largely to the world's current obsession with American politics.
01:20Launched in 2020, PolyMarket has already surpassed $650 million in trading volume this year,
01:26with nearly $300 million in July alone, according to data from Dune Analytics.
01:33The platform is expected to process $1 billion in wagered predictions before the year is
01:37over.
01:39Campaign managers and political analysts now turn to this unconventional oracle, seeking
01:44clues in the fluctuating market prices.
01:47Even former President Donald Trump has touted his PolyMarket odds on his social media app,
01:52Truth Social.
01:54Though blockchain technology isn't necessary for this type of application, PolyMarket uses
01:59a network called Polygon, which operates 24-7 and sits atop Ethereum, where transactions
02:05cost fractions of the chain's normal fees.
02:08However, instead of U.S. dollars, customers who want to make trades on PolyMarket use
02:13the dollar-based stablecoin USDC.
02:16But even that is changing.
02:18Last week, PolyMarket announced it is enabling users to pay for their bets using bank transfers
02:23and credit cards through a partnership with Miami-based MoonPay.
02:28The prediction marketplace's soaring popularity has convinced top-tier investors, including
02:33Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, to back the startup
02:38with funding totaling $74 million.
02:42Currently, markets tied to U.S. elections, of which there are more than 100, are driving
02:47most of the trading volume on PolyMarket.
02:50These are supposedly off-limits to U.S. residents, though 25% of the website's traffic comes
02:55from the U.S., according to web analytics platform SimilarWeb.
03:01PolyMarket's 26-year-old founder, Shane Coplin, won't say much about his team's efforts to
03:05prevent U.S.-based users from betting on elections.
03:08He prefers to emphasize his platform's strengths.
03:12From PolyMarket's posh penthouse office in New York City's SoHo neighborhood, Coplin
03:16says, quote,
03:17"...PolyMarket effectively takes what otherwise would be an internet yelling match and turns
03:22that into a market where the person who's right wins.
03:25We want our forecasts to become ubiquitous and mainstream."
03:30Raised in Manhattan by his NYU film professor mother, Coplin says he was an internet nerd.
03:36At age 14, he was experimenting with building a cryptocurrency mining rig, and in 2014,
03:41he participated in the Ethereum pre-sale, when the price of Ether was roughly 30 cents.
03:47Coplin studied computer science at NYU, but dropped out during his second semester in
03:512017.
03:53As the world plunged into uncertainty during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, Coplin began
03:58exploring PolyMarket's predecessors like Ethereum-based prediction market Augur, which never really
04:04gained traction.
04:05Eventually, he began developing his own prediction platform.
04:10PolyMarket's first event market was a small wager about when New York City would reopen.
04:15Coplin's seed funding of $4 million came a few months later, in October 2020, and was
04:20led by another crypto wunderkind, Olaf Karlsson Wee, founder of crypto hedge fund Polychain Capital.
04:28For full coverage, check out Nina Bambasheva's piece on Forbes.com.
04:34This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:36Thanks for tuning in.
04:40♪♪♪
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