Five years ago, he worked from his bathroom on the verge of ruin. Today, he runs a company valued at 8 billion.

Polymarket, a prediction market platform, has secured a valuation of $8 billion following a strategic investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This represents a significant leap for the company, founded in 2020, which began with limited resources. The deal includes ICE investing up to $2 billion in cash in Polymarket. The agreement will see ICE become a global distributor of Polymarket's data, providing sentiment indicators relevant to financial markets. Polymarket allows users to bet on the outcomes of real-world events. The platform operates through peer-to-peer trading facilitated by smart contracts, and its markets are valued by the number of participants and their perceived probabilities. This partnership has implications for both traditional financial markets and the blockchain space. The collaboration also involves initiatives in tokenization. Polymarket gained recognition for its accurate predictions during the 2024 US presidential elections and has since become the world's largest prediction market. Polymarket's success highlights the growing interest in prediction markets as a tool for gauging public sentiment and potential outcomes, especially in a fast-paced technological and financial climate. It also signifies the potential of blockchain technology in these fields.