Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns and operates the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), has made a $2 billion investment in the Polymarket prediction market.
The investment pegs Polymarket’s valuation at least at $9 billion as it prepares to relaunch in the United States.
The deal also potentially marks a milepost in the melding of traditional and decentralized financial mechanisms.
Said Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan on social media: “Our partnership with ICE marks a major step in bringing prediction markets into the financial mainstream.”
Coplan called the investment “a monumental step forward” for decentralized finance, which is designed to use peer-to-peer blockchain technology to facilitate transactions without banks as intermediaries. As part of the deal, “ICE will also begin distributing Polymarket data to thousands of financial institutions around the world,” Coplan continued.
Details of ICE-Polymarket deal
According to an ICE release, the companies have also agreed to partner on future tokenization agreements.
“ICE is the one remaining founder-led exchange company, and [CEO] Jeff [Sprecher] is all-in on utilizing his assets, including NYSE, to usher in a new financial era of tokenization,” Coplan continued on X (formerly Twitter). “We’re humbled to be working together on this endeavor. … There is so much to build when you combine the force of ICE’s institutional scale and credibility with Polymarket’s consumer + cultural savvy and distribution.”
Sprecher touted the melding of a rooted stock exchange founded in 1792 – and purchased by ICE in 2013 – with a “forward-thinking, revolutionary company pioneering change within the decentralized finance space.”
“Shayne Coplan has assembled a team at Polymarket to create a user-driven company relentlessly focused on product, building usage and distribution,” he continued. “There are opportunities across markets which ICE together with Polymarket can uniquely serve and we are excited about where this investment can take us.”
What’s next for Polymarket?
Polymarket, the largest prediction market in the world, is apparently waiting out the government shutdown to relaunch in the U.S. almost four years after being forced out by federal agencies.
The company self-certified election markets and sports events contracts with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in mid-September and on Sept. 30 filed paperwork signallng an intention to offer prop-bet-style markets and perhaps parlays. Polymarket regained access in the United States by purchasing registered prediction market QCEX for $112 million in July.
The CFTC has in the past taken the position that self-certifications are paused during shutdowns, even though that policy is not law. InGame understands that Acting Chair Caroline Pham may not agree with that policy and may have the power to change it.
Why did ICE invest in Polymarket?
ICE has a history of early moves in newly developing industries but never one still being sorted out in the courts, as is the case with the emerging sports event contract controversy in prediction markets. With some analysts confident that prediction markets could bloom from a $1.5 billion market now to $95 billion in a decade, pending federal cooperation or court acquiescence, ICE was obviously willing to gamble.
Bloomberg said the union “represents a bridge between legacy financial institutions and next-generation data-driven markets,” with ICE at the juncture of traditional and new-age financial systems.
Polymarket gaining investors
Polymarket was valued at $1 billion in late June after Founders Fund, founded by Peter Thiel, led a $150 million round. Other investors include Polychain Capital, Dragonfly, and 1789 Capital, reportedly backed by Polymarket special adviser Donald Trump Jr.
ICE’s market capitalization is more than $91 billion.
According to ICE, the investment will be in cash “and is not expected to have a material impact on ICE’s 2025 financial results or expected capital return plans,” according to a release.
The company plans to expound on the reasons for the investment in a third-quarter earnings call scheduled for Oct. 30.
