Blockchain-based predictions platform Polymarket is searching for a further $50 million in new capital amid potential plans to launch a token, The Data reported Monday.
Buyers within the spherical will likely be issued token warrants, giving them the precise 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 12 months, the place it picked up $25 million in a Collection A led by Basic Catalyst and a further $45 million in Collection 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 members to purchase and promote shares in several potential outcomes of real-world occasions. The worth of 1 “share” in a prediction market ranges from $0.00 to $1, and its value correlates to its proportion likelihood of successful, or its “odds.”
Whereas hypothesis on who will take the White Home in November has helped gas the platform’s current 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 whole buying and selling quantity reaching its highest level on the platform final month, topping out at $472.8 million, based on one Dune dashboard.
Its reputation has led these throughout the Polymarket neighborhood to opine in current weeks on the potential for a token to assist fund operations, because the platform doesn’t at present cost customers charges.
Merchants have began altering their conduct in response to the hypothesis, trying to artificially enhance their buying and selling quantity in hopes of securing a bigger airdrop reward, based on whales, or giant merchants, monitoring the exercise, Decrypt beforehand reported.
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