Polymarket raises $2B from Intercontinental Exchange in the largest single crypto investment ever

Shane from Poly Market joining the show. He's in the reream waiting room. We'll bring him into this Ultradome. Shane, how are you doing? Look at that setup. Fantastic. Shane, can you hear us? I can hear you guys. I cannot see you guys. Okay. Okay.

Well, trust that we are looking at you and smiling at you and you look fantastic. You look fantastic. Today's about you. Break down uh the news. It's It's hard not to look fantastic with this backdrop. This backdrop. Yeah. Right there. Um, I had to FaceTime all my family members be like, "Hey, look at that.

" You know, now with uh with all the AI stuff, you gota you got to show that it's true. You got to break through. From the from the bathroom office in 2020 to the nice seat in 2025, anything is possible. What a run. Take us through the deal today. Take us through the news.

Uh what's the what are the key points in the announcement? Yeah, I mean, look, it's um I've never been really like a deal guy or a guy that's very focused on um you know, I would say a lot of entrepreneurs, they're very optimizing around fundraising, etc. I really just like building things.

And usually what I found is when you get traction and when you get motion and when people start taking notice of what you do, the money usually follows. And uh in this case, there was a lot of interest from people who um wanted to invest and I'm very grateful and humbled by all of it.

Uh and then Jeff reached out to me and it was kind of like we got we got to talking. He has he knows markets and and traditional finance better than anybody. He runs his own company that he started solo founder like myself.

And there were all these ideas that we had that we could do together and we were very like-minded on it and he was a big fan of Poly Market. So when when he started saying hey let's do something it uh there were a lot of synergies that came together quickly.

So it's very exciting and this is not a token strategic investment. I mean this is very very meaningful. I think I I correct me if I'm wrong but this is like the single this is the single largest investment in a in a in a cryp crypto company ever. Okay that one. Yeah. Give us the actual numbers.

What's the structure of the deal? Is this uh this is a strategic deal. It's not like a Are you giving it a series number like a letter? Like like how are you actually describing the deal? I want to ring the gong for you. I want the numbers. Yeah. Um they're investing $2 billion. Let's go. Hit that gong. There we go.

Oh, the gong's from your side. I thought the gong was like a periodic uh New York Stock Exchange thing. The gong is from our side. We have everywhere studio. Uh what what are what can you share about uh what the partnership will actually look like over the next 12 24 months and beyond?

Like what's most exciting about it to you? I mean look, it's right now such a moment for prediction markets.

Um, it's been exciting for us to sort of be like, you know, sit there and even two years ago, it really was a category that people kept writing off and saying, "Oh, yeah, it's an idea that makes so much sense, but it's never going to work.

" Um, we're really excited that we were able to buy QC and be set up to go to enter the US market. I think, um, it's lining up perfectly. The stars are aligning. The timings the timing is about as good as it could be.

Uh so on that side there's a lot in terms of data and in terms of distribution and and sort of who can have access to poly market particularly in the US but also globally uh because ICE has you know exchange assets all around the world.

Uh but also Jeff in particular as he mentioned on CBC earlier is like he's a big believer in tokenization. He's a big believer in all assets are going to be tokenized. It's a superior technology for the exchange of assets and Poly Market is the biggest consumer product that's built on on tokenization under the hood.

For every prediction market, it's actually tokenized. There's a yes token and no token. Um, so there's a lot of ideas we've kicked around there. And I think ICE has incredible savvy and Jeff is incredible savvy about how you can do these things.

um utilizing existing assets and and understanding sort of the existing matrix of US regulation and then where there could be pockets that there may have to be collaboration between the regulators and the innovators um for how to basically do things that exist but in a more efficient way utilizing new technology.

So that's the thing that I'm definitely going to be leaning on him for. That's not the thing that I'm uh that that you know I can't say that I'm the best at that like he is. But in terms of the consumer side and building the products, uh, ICE doesn't have any consumer properties, right?

So that's where we come in and that's where I think him and I, we have this mutual understanding, common ground of how these products could work. He's a very innovative guy, very forward thinking and um, you know, we can kind of see the vision in terms of polymarket.

com, how it can look there, and he can understand the the infrastructure and how to make it happen from the regulatory and infrastructure side. Did you ever expect Prediction Markets to be in South Park to have an episode edit? Was that on your bingo card for this year or did that was that still a surprise?

Yeah, I mean I love South Park. Like I grew up a South Park kid. I remember watching the the original movie. I remember being a Best Buy and buying season 2, season 3 on VHS.

Um, and look, I think that uh it's funny because the geopolitical markets on Poly Market have have proven to be extremely useful like in the WhatsApp groups from people in the Middle East and um people who are into open source intelligence oent they really watch Poly Market like a hawk and the sort of crux of the the episode being this idea of like uh you know this sort of u will the mother in the Jewish family uh you know bomb Gaza like that kind of being it's this play on on those markets like it's it's definitely pushing it but it's also just so South Park and you know it's obviously all in good fun but the way that they interpreted the situation and distilled it into a South Park episode you know you wouldn't expect anything less from them.

What about uh just uh the inter intercontinental exchange ICE uh founded in 2000 uh backed by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Shell, Dutch, Deutsche Bank, uh Sock General, like it is the ultimate bridge to Wall Street. How important are those connections? Are you already plugged into all the Wall Street firms?

Is this a is this a a new a new pipeline for you to uh just Wall Street generally and uh professionalization? Like how does that all play out for you? Absolutely. Look, I've historically been more of a a cold email guy, so I don't think that would get me that far on this street.

Um, and yeah, you know, when I talk to Jeff and Co about this, like they know everyone and um, everyone's a text or an email or phone call away. And that's really exciting because there's a lot of interest. Every time I meet somebody who's um, you know, from the traditional world high up, they they love Poly Market.

They love what we do. They're obsessed with the data and they oftentimes track it. And, you know, it's something Poly Market is something that they look at frequently.

And you know now one having the bridge but also having the credibility of of such a great partner uh it it's probably hard to underestimate how important that will be in terms of us bridging the gap especially as we render the US market and we open up for institutions. Fantastic. Anything else?

Well, absolutely iconic image today of you outside the exchange. Congratulations. You know it's funny like we've had so many misconnections, right?

Like there were so many times we were going to hop on and I was going to be in a little booth or like a little chair in the back and I said, you know, one time if I'm going to go on Y, if I'm going to go on your guys pod, it's got to be special. I got to figure out how to mo one way or another. Well, Mog, you did Shane.

So, here we are. Thank you for everything that you do to make this show possible. I appreciate it. I'm a huge fan of of of what you guys do and it's awesome to see right there that uh the Poly Market ticker. There it is. You know, you guys are are real uh real champions, pioneers. Thanks so much for having me.