NYSE owner to invest up to $2 billion in polymarket

NYSE owner ICE is pouring $2 billion into Polymarket as it prepares for a long-awaited U.S. market return.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a major strategic investment in PolyMarket, a decentralized prediction market platform that aggregates probabilities for global events spanning politics, sports and culture.

Under the deal, ICE will invest up to $2 billion in the company, which will put PolyMarket’s pre-valuation at $8 billion.

PolyMarket gets validation from Wall Street

Beyond capital infusion, ICE will serve as a global distributor of PolyMarket’s event-driven data and plans to offer sentiment metrics to clients on topics relevant to financial markets.

The two entities will also collaborate on future tokenization projects. In its official press release, ICE said the cash investment is not expected to materially affect its 2025 financial results or anticipated capital return plans. Management is expected to provide more details regarding the move during ICE’s third-quarter earnings call, which is scheduled for October 30.

Following the development, Ice Chairman and CEO Jeffrey C. Sprecher commented,

“Our investment blends Ice, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, which was founded in 1792, with a groundbreaking, forward-thinking company, Shayne Coplan assembled a team at Polymarket to create company-focused marketing. can take us.

Redemption Arc

PolyMarket, founded by Coplan in 2020, allows users to exchange shares on potential event outcomes, with smart contracts facilitating peer-to-peer transactions. Its markets, covering politics, business, culture and sports, are growing as participation increases. His operations were not without controversy.

On November 13 of last year, FBI agents raided Coplan’s Manhattan apartment. They demanded access to his phone and devices, shortly after the platform correctly predicted Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris with 58.6% odds. Later, no charges were filed.

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PolyMarket previously paid $1.4 million to the CFTC in 2022 over registration issues and has since remained inaccessible to US users. To ease the re-entry, it purchased a regulated exchange and clearing house, QCEX, earlier this year. The firm also expanded politically, bringing Donald Trump Jr. onto its advisory board and securing investment from its venture capital firm.

Meanwhile, new research from New York-based data scientist Alex McCullough found that PolyMarket achieves around 90% accuracy across multiple time frames. Using a Dune dashboard, McCullough tracked predictions one month, one week, one day, 12 hours and four hours before market resolution, and found that accuracy reached 94.2% over the last four hours. The historical analysis removed outliers and considered markets above 50% probability. However, biases like herd behavior, low liquidity, and acquiescence were also reported, which slightly inflated the odds.