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Author: Jeff John Roberts, Niamh Rowe, FORTUNE; Compilation: 0xxz@作 作 作 作 作
Each election cycle seems to launch a new predicted star.
In 2008, CNN’s John King and his color election data “Magic Wall” came out.Later, the cycle witnessed the rise of “Nate Silver and Nate Cohn”, and their statistical journalism made gimmicks such as the New York Times predicting needle to become a fixed content of political reports.
In 2024, everyone’s eyes turned to the new election darling: Polymarket website.
This betting website based on blockchain technology has become the first choice for politicians because it has repeatedly predicted major elections in advance.For example, in the past few months, PolyMarket foreshadows that President Joe Bayeng has given up his re -election, and Donald Trump chose JD Vance as a campaign partner.The reputation of the website, Nate Silver himself also agreed to join the company as a consultant.
Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan is well known outside the cryptocurrency circle. He is a 26 -year -old New York native. From his appearance, he should be touched with an alternative rock band instead of operating the most in contemporary politicsOne of the influential websitesEssence
COPLAN has been avoiding the focus of public attention so far, but with the popularity of Polymarket (has raised $ 70 million in funds) in American politics, this situation may change in the near future.
Polymarket founder Coplan
Encrypted disciplinary growth
At the recent dinner in Manhattan, Coplan was wearing jeans and leather jackets.He was invited by a venture capital company to come to the startup in his investment portfolio to communicate with media members.Coplan is easily recognized because he has a messy curly hair on his head, and his behavior is casual, which is very different from other founders.
Although venture capitalists like to say that they do not have the favorite investment group company, the organizers carefully point out that the “Polymarket team” is the most worthy person.However, Coplan did not seem to be in a hurry to inspect. After a few words of talking politely, he left when he came to table at the main course, and sorry to tell everyone that he would go to Brooklyn to listen to the concert.
Coplan is very familiar with New York.He grew up by his mother and grew up in the Western District of New York to public school in Hell ’s Kitchen near the theater area.When he was a teenager, he learned programming,According to the legend of encryption, he is the youngest participant in Ethereum in 2014—— At that time, the price of this token was 30 cents, and now, its transaction price is about $ 3,500.Coplan later studied computer science degree at New York University, but dropped out of school before graduation, and pursued the areas of increasingly obsessed: cryptocurrency and forecasting market.
“He wants to talk about this forever. This is his life. He made a living,” said Rob Hadick, a partner of the venture capital company Dragonfly, said that Dragonfly was also one of the investors of Polymarket.He added that during the first meeting, Coplan did not formally promote in the conference room, but proposed to take a walk. As a result, it became a walk for two hours in New York. During this time, Coplan had been talking about the forecast market in Hadick’s ear.
As explained in books such as “Group Wisdom”, using collective predictions to determine the possibility of future events is usually more reliable than consulting experts.This concept is not new. In fact, its variants -including market prediction market -have already existed for several centuries.Although there are other online gaming platforms, such as Paddy Power in Ireland, it allows users to bet on everything from sports to politics, but Coplan said that Polymarket is different.
“It is more like a derivative platform. The pricing of these derivatives has become a priceless real -time information,” Coplan said in the text message. He pointed out that the odds were continuously determined by a group of betters, not a centralized compensation.Determined by the Pedation.(PolyMarket is also known for using smart contract settlement and payment bets -specifically, it is Polygon through a sub -layer of the Ethereum blockchain.)
In recent months, Coplan has the opportunity to directly talk about the benefits of his website directly with politicians, including breakfast with Florida Governor Ron De Setis.Last week, he also reposted a tweet that demonstrated the picture of the website displayed around the headquarters of the Republican Party Committee -but so far he has been carefully avoiding his political tendency.
When the official interview was required -since Polymarket first attracted people’s attention in 2020, Coplan has not accepted such an interview -Coplan politely rejected because the schedule is busy.
Coplan’s exposure on the Internet is very low.Several photos on the Internet show that 20 -year -old Copland has no curly hair and delivered cryptocurrency speeches at the Bitcoin Miami conference in 2018 and participated in cruise cruise.But in addition, he has always avoided the attention of the media -however, as Polymarket became a household name, he may not have such a luxury.
Bettish uncertain future
Most people are familiar with online gaming websites, including American sports gaming websites and overseas gaming websites. These websites allow gamblers to bet from various things such as election to alien login.Polymarket also offers all these bets, but its internal operation methods are very different.
The probability of specific events is not determined by the centralized odds, but is determined by the Polymarket user. These users can buy “shares (shares)” with specific results.For example, on July 31, those who think that Donald Trump will choose his campaign partner JD Vance can pay 8 cents. If the result is true, their contract value will rise to $ 1 (if the results at the election have not achieved the result, the results will not be completed during the election.Really, it will fall to zero).Of course, the price fluctuates with news events.
At present, Polymarket refuses to pursue the most obvious potential source of income: it is made from the betting on the website.On the contrary, its continuous development of business models (including a function that is about to be launched, allowing users to use credit cards instead of cryptocurrency payment) seems to involve media business and may also involve consulting business.SEMAFOR reported this week that Polymarket is launching a series of current affairs communication, and also cooperates with major media to include its data into the report (the chart of the website has appeared on the Wall Street Journal).The company has not disclosed how much income will receive from these investment (if so).
Polymarket may also charge fees on betting on its website.At present, the company collects suggestions on its Discord platform, and then notify what suggestions it will add.Some recently added bets include betting on the number of medals in Simon Bays and the possibility of military conflict that occurred by the United States and Ichi by August 31.However, there are no signs that the PolyMarket plans allow the company to pay bets.
Polymarket Shares becomes the most popular bet?
Polymarket is not the first website.Early encrypted projects, such as Augur and GNOSIS, also provided a decentralized betting platform, but they never received attention.In contrast, PolyMarket has become a fixed content of political Twitter. According to the saying of Nick Tom Arino (its risk fund 1confirmation has invested in all these projects), Polymarket is the first choice website (85%) for the US presidential election results.
The rapid development of the website -on July 1, it attracted a record of 42,000 betters, higher than 4,000 in January -maybe surprisingBecause in the United States, it is illegal to the election bet, and the US betting person is banned from using the platformAnd PolyMarket requires users to connect to the plus wallet and use USDC stablecoin to pay.These obstacles have also triggered a question: Polymarket betors (mostly non -Americans who are deeply trapped in encrypted culture) can make reliable predictions on American elections.
Tomaino admits that if Americans can participate, the sample will be better, but he said that Polymarket still provides a very strong signal.This is because, like other forecasting markets, it not only reflects “group wisdom”, but also based on a group of people who have economic benefits in the results. These people may have more knowledge.
When assessing Polymarket and various betting markets, remember that the possible results they displayed are only useful.In 2016, most public opinion investigators and gaming websites stated that Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning were 75% to 85%.The facts of her failure did not discredit these predictions, but reflected that Donald Trump’s victory is less likely, but it is very real, and this probability has been realized.
PolyMarket is not only a new thing on the US election stage, but also a popular start -up company. So far, it has raised $ 70 million, including a round of 45 million US dollars in May. These funds come from influential investors.They include not only cryptocurrency giants such as Vitalik Buterin and Coinbase, but also well -known venture capitalists such as Peter Thiel.
However, it is still unclear how Polymarket intends to make money.According to Tomaino, the current income of the website is “very low”, although it pays the New York City Office and 25 to 30 employees.
Polymarket’s biggest challenge may be that persuasion regulatory agencies allow it to operate in the United States.In 2010, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission banned derivatives or so-called event contracts involving terrorism and other illegal activities (including “gambling”) in accordance with the Dord-Frank Act.Although CFTC did not define gambling at the time, the committee was fined 1.2 million US dollars due to Polymarket’s operation in the United States in 2021. It is currently formulating new regulations to clearly prohibit election betting.
Investor Tom Arino is not worried about all of this.He believes that it is wrong to worry that the election bet will undermine the political process, and pointed out that this betting has provided people with more than a century of insight, and the Super Political Action Commission (allowing anonymous donors to represent candidates to spend hundreds of hundredsWan dollars) seem to pose a greater threat to the fairness of the election.As for Coplan, Tom Arino said that he might become more noticeable in the next few months.But at present he “just focuses on products.”
