Markets on Everything…Degenerate Economy For All as The Intercontinental Exchange ($ICE) Invests in Polymarket
Good morning my degenerates friends…
In news I have been predicting the last year or so via my ‘degenerate economy index’, Polymarket is about to get a $2 billion investment from $ICE ( ▲ 0.87% ) (The Intercontinental Exchange) and other venture investors at a near $10 billion valuation. Because there has been no ‘public’ market way to own the prediction markets, I used $ICE ( ▲ 0.87% ) $CBOE ( ▲ 0.5% ) and $CME ( ▲ 0.2% ) as the proxies in the index portfolio. I explained in February how intertwined these players would become. Just a few months back I personally invested in an SPV to so that I could own some Polymarket. The round was led by Peter Thiel.
For all the hoopla, excitement and rich valuations around Polymarket and prediction markets, we are still incredible early and the companies are incredibly small. Polymarket is less than 50 employees, I imagine they in the process of hiring hundreds of people.
Just last month Stocktwits and Polymarket partnered exclusively to bring prediction markets to our huge community and platform. Our team at Stocktwits is working on the ultimate game(s) and leaderboards for these markets with this partnership. Think Zynga but for Stocktwits. You will see it soon enough.
Here is Shayne, the founder of Polymarket on the investment and partnership this morning (click the tweet below)…
Markets on everything.
We’re proud to announce that $ICE, the owner of @NYSE and the largest exchange company in the world, is making a strategic investment of $2 billion into Polymarket, valuing us at $9 billion post-money.
Our partnership with ICE marks a major step in
— Shayne Coplan 🦅 (@shayne_coplan)
12:10 PM • Oct 7, 2025
Here is the new investor lists as released by Shayne…
Who invested and how much means little in a world moving this fast. But, it would be hard to screw this lead up. The product/market fit is incredible. I imagine their biggest competitor Kalshi has a huge raise coming right behind.
While the pundits wring their hands about sports betting apps like Draftkings and Fanduel ( $FLUT ( ▼ 5.42% ) and $DKNG ( ▼ 5.12% ) )and social media, along comes prediction markets that likely disrupts both in many ways.
For much of my life I have gotten my news about the state of the world from the prices of stocks and markets. I hate this new world of opinion based ‘news’ and I hate dumb bets ( ‘parlays’). With prediction markets I can now get most of the event based news from prediction markets and avoid Twitter even more.
The societal benefits of prediction markets will be debated forever. Now that the financial market makers, exchanges and data providers are involved this will be an incredible waste of time. You may not like it, but this is the future.
Have a good day.
