Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which manages the New York Stock Exchange, recently announced a significant investment in Polymarket, a decentralized platform that covers probable global events in politics, sports, and culture.

Under the new partnership, ICE is set to allocate as much as $2 billion, elevating Polymarket’s pre-investment valuation to $8 billion.

Wall Street Endorsement for Polymarket

In addition to this capital boost, ICE will act as a worldwide distributor for Polymarket’s event-driven data and will provide clients with sentiment metrics pertinent to financial markets. The companies plan to work together on upcoming tokenization initiatives. According to ICE, this cash investment is not expected to have a substantial impact on its financial results for 2025 or its projected capital return plans; more details will be shared during the earnings call scheduled for October 30.

ICE Chair & CEO Jeffrey C. Sprecher commented,

“Our investment combines ICE, the NYSE owner since 1792, with an innovative company that is pushing boundaries in the DeFi space. With a team led by Shayne Coplan at Polymarket, we see vast opportunities across markets that we can uniquely serve together, and we are thrilled at the potential of this investment.”

Recovery Journey

Founded in 2020 by Coplan, Polymarket enables users to trade shares based on the potential outcomes of events, employing smart contracts for peer-to-peer transactions. The platform’s event topics span politics, business, culture, and sports. However, its trajectory has not been without controversy.

In a notable incident, the FBI raided Coplan’s New York apartment last November, demanding access to his electronic devices shortly after Polymarket accurately predicted a Trump vs. Harris outcome at 58.6% odds. No charges were brought forth afterward.

Polymarket previously settled with the CFTC for $1.4 million in 2022 due to registration issues and had been unavailable to U.S. users since. To facilitate its return, the platform acquired QCEX, a regulated exchange and clearinghouse, earlier this year and expanded its team by enlisting Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor.

Recent research from New York data scientist Alex McCullough suggests Polymarket enjoys a 90% accuracy rate across various time frames. Utilized data from Dune dashboards indicated a peak accuracy of 94.2% within the final hours before market closure, while potential biases concerning herd behavior and low liquidity were noted as factors that could distort probabilities.