Blockchain-based predictions platform Polymarket is searching for a further $50 million in new capital amid potential plans to launch a token, The Info reported Monday.
Buyers within the spherical will likely be issued token warrants, giving them the appropriate 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 throughout 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 yr, the place it picked up $25 million in a Sequence A led by Basic Catalyst and a further $45 million in Sequence B funding with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Polymarket has been using excessive on U.S. election fervor this yr, capturing practically $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 contributors 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 likelihood of profitable, or its “odds.”
Whereas hypothesis on who will take the White Home in November has helped gasoline 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 yr, with whole buying and selling quantity reaching its highest level on the platform final month, topping out at $472.8 million, in line with one Dune dashboard.
Its reputation has led these throughout the Polymarket neighborhood to opine in latest weeks on the potential of 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 line with whales, or massive merchants, monitoring the exercise, Decrypt beforehand reported.
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