The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), is reportedly in advanced negotiations to acquire a $2 billion stake in Polymarket, a rapidly expanding blockchain-based prediction platform.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the potential deal, expected to be finalised as early as this week could value Polymarket between $8 billion and $10 billion, positioning it as one of the most valuable decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms in the world.
The market reacted swiftly to the news, with ICE shares rising more than 4% in pre-market trading, as investors applauded the exchange operator’s strategic move into the fast-growing world of tokenised information and event-driven data.
As part of the agreement, ICE is set to become a global distributor of Polymarket’s prediction data, giving institutional clients new insights into real-time public sentiment on politics, economics, and cultural trends. The two firms will also collaborate on tokenisation initiatives, aligning ICE’s financial infrastructure with Polymarket’s decentralised model.
“Shayne Coplan and the Polymarket team have built a product-first company that captures the power of user-driven prediction,” said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, ICE’s Chair and CEO. “Together, we see opportunities across global markets that ICE and Polymarket can uniquely serve.”
From Start-Up to $10 Billion Titan: Polymarket’s Meteoric Rise
Founded in New York by Shayne Coplan, Polymarket allows users to trade on real-world outcomes from elections and economic policy to sports and global events, using blockchain-based contracts. What began as a niche crypto project has rapidly evolved into a mainstream data platform leveraged by traders, analysts, and institutions seeking collective intelligence on global events.
The company’s potential $10 billion valuation marks an extraordinary leap from its $1 billion valuation in June 2025, when Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund led a $200 million funding round.
Since then, Polymarket’s influence and its investor roster, have expanded dramatically. In August, Donald Trump Jr. joined its advisory board following a multimillion-dollar investment by his firm, 1789 Capital. The platform has also partnered with Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) to integrate its markets with xAI’s Grok chatbot, offering real-time predictive analytics on trending events.
In September, Polymarket launched a 4% annualised yield feature on select long-term markets, covering major political and geopolitical outcomes, including the 2028 U.S. presidential election and leadership changes in countries like Russia, China, and Israel.
The firm’s resurgence follows a turbulent regulatory period. Both the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) closed investigations into Polymarket in July 2025, clearing its path for a full-scale U.S. re-entry after years of legal uncertainty.
Government Shutdown Freezes U.S. Relaunch Plans
However, Polymarket’s long-awaited return to the American market has hit an unexpected obstacle: the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, which has paralysed the CFTC’s operations.
The platform had planned to re-enter the U.S. through QCEX, a Designated Contract Market (DCM) it recently acquired to facilitate regulated trading. But with the shutdown halting all self-certification processes, the mechanism through which exchanges register new contracts, Polymarket’s timeline is now in limbo.
The CFTC has a long-standing practice of suspending all such certifications during federal shutdowns, as seen in 2013, 2018, and 2019, leaving market operators unable to launch new products. The current shutdown, which began on 1 October, has furloughed over 94% of CFTC employees, leaving only 31 of 543 staff on duty.
As a result, the CFTC’s public filings portal has seen no new activity since September 30, and filings submitted by QCEX on October 1, reportedly covering four new market types related to sports outcomes, remain unprocessed.
This delay could prove costly. Rival prediction platform Kalshi, already licensed and operational in the U.S., now has a crucial window to consolidate market share while Polymarket remains sidelined.
Regulatory Stalemate Tests Polymarket’s Momentum
The shutdown not only disrupts Polymarket’s operational plans but also exposes the fragility of America’s regulatory infrastructure for emerging financial technologies.
Acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham, the commission’s only current member, holds the authority to resume limited operations. Pham has previously criticised the suspension of self-certifications during shutdowns, suggesting she may seek to expedite approvals if resources permit. However, with the agency operating at minimal capacity, meaningful progress appears unlikely until normal government functions resume.
Polymarket’s internal prediction markets have already turned introspective: traders currently assign a 70% probability that the shutdown will extend beyond 15 October, reflecting widespread pessimism.
The timing is particularly unfortunate for Polymarket, whose U.S. comeback has been years in the making. In November 2024, the company faced a DOJ investigation for allegedly offering unregistered contracts to American users, even prompting an FBI raid at founder Shayne Coplan’s residence. Though cleared in mid-2025, the firm’s regulatory recovery has been fragile and now faces yet another bureaucratic hurdle.
Wall Street Meets Web3: The Broader Implications
If the ICE–Polymarket deal proceeds, it will mark one of Wall Street’s most significant incursions into decentralised prediction markets, signalling growing institutional confidence in blockchain-based event trading.
The collaboration could transform Polymarket’s crowdsourced intelligence into a mainstream financial data asset, offering banks, hedge funds, and asset managers real-time forecasting tools to gauge market and political sentiment.
For ICE, the move represents a strategic diversification beyond traditional equities and commodities, as global finance increasingly converges with digital infrastructure. For Polymarket, it offers legitimacy, liquidity, and scale, the elements needed to evolve from a crypto-native project into a regulated global exchange.
Conclusion: A Bet on Truth and Markets
ICE’s $2 billion investment bid underscores a defining moment for prediction markets, where crowdsourced truth meets institutional capital. Yet, even as Wall Street signals its confidence, Washington’s paralysis threatens to stall the industry’s next phase of growth.
If Polymarket clears this latest regulatory hurdle, its partnership with ICE could reshape how information, data, and probability are traded in the digital age. Until then, the company’s U.S. comeback and its $10 billion destiny, remains suspended between Wall Street ambition and Washington gridlock.
