>> be @Polymarket >> 1998: Shayne Coplan born, Upper West Side. public school kid >> 2013: age 14. cold-emails the SEC. wants to build his own stock exchange >> 2014: buys Ethereum at $0.30 >> 2019(around): drops out of NYU. moves to Lower East Side >> 2019: he wrote economist Hanson a paragraphs-long email proclaiming he wanted "to be the person to bring prediction markets to life" Hanson ignored it >> 2020: COVID hits. builds a prediction market alone in his apartment first markets: will there be a vaccine by December? >> October 2020: raises $4M. Naval Ravikant writes the check >> 2020 election: correctly calls Biden weeks before anyone else >> 2022: CFTC fines you $1.4M. calls you an unregistered derivatives platform block all US users. pivot international hire the former CFTC chair as your advisor >> June 2023: Titan submersible goes missing. someone opens a market "Will it be found by June 23?" goes viral everyone discovers you exist >> 2024: $70M raised. Vitalik and Peter Thiel both write checks Nate Silver joins as advisor election night >> 2024: every poll shows a toss-up Polymarket shows Trump. clearly Trump wins one French trader moves your markets more than every pollster combined >> November 2024: FBI raids Coplan's apartment. seizes his devices Polymarket calls it "obvious political retribution" >> October 2025: NYSE's parent company invests $2B. values you at $8B >> October 2025: Coplan becomes youngest self-made billionaire. age 27 >> March 2026: $600M follow-on. valuation hits $9B The kid who emailed the SEC at 14 built the platform that made every poll irrelevant. He still doesn't have a fully regulated US exchange. Working on it Video: Forbes