Blockchain-based predictions platform Polymarket is searching for an extra $50 million in new capital amid potential plans to launch a token, The Info reported Monday.
Buyers within the spherical can be issued token warrants, giving them the suitable to buy tokens if Polymarket decides to launch them sooner or later, the outlet reported, citing nameless sources.
It is unclear whether or not the tokens will present further utility inside the platform. Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
It follows the platform’s $70 million elevate over two rounds this 12 months, the place it picked up $25 million in a Sequence A led by Common Catalyst and an extra $45 million in Sequence B funding with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Polymarket has been driving excessive on U.S. election fervor this 12 months, capturing almost $1 billion in commerce quantity from these taking a punt on who will develop into the nation’s forty seventh president.
Constructed atop the Ethereum and Polygon blockchain networks, Polymarket permits individuals to purchase and promote shares in numerous doable outcomes of real-world occasions. The value of 1 “share” in a prediction market ranges from $0.00 to $1, and its value correlates to its proportion probability of profitable, or its “odds.”
Whereas hypothesis on who will take the White Home in November has helped gas the platform’s latest surge in reputation, Polymarket additionally permits betting on popular culture, sporting, and different political occasions.
And merchants are taking outsized bets this 12 months, with complete buying and selling quantity reaching its highest level on the platform final month, topping out at $472.8 million, in response to one Dune dashboard.
Its reputation has led these inside the Polymarket neighborhood to opine in latest weeks on the potential for a token to assist fund operations, because the platform doesn’t at the moment cost customers charges.
Merchants have began altering their habits in response to the hypothesis, making an attempt to artificially enhance their buying and selling quantity in hopes of securing a bigger airdrop reward, in response to whales, or massive merchants, monitoring the exercise, Decrypt beforehand reported.
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