Shayne Coplan becomes youngest self-made billionaire after Polymarket’s $8B valuation

Shayne Coplan is 27 years old, and he has just become the world’s youngest self-made ￰0￱ road here was not clean or ￰1￱ grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City, went to public schools in Hell’s Kitchen, and enrolled in computer science at New York ￰2￱ he dropped out before ￰3￱ 2019, he was living in a small Lower East Side apartment, so broke that he made a list of his belongings to see what he could sell to cover ￰4￱ to Shayne, that is where the story of Polymarket ￰5￱ then, crypto was full of scams and shady ￰6￱ was fed ￰7￱ turned to the writings of economist Robin Hanson, who had been pushing the idea of prediction markets as a better way to see what people actually thought would happen in the ￰8￱ later wrote on X that the idea was “too good of an idea to just exist in whitepapers.” Then the pandemic arrived, and people were stuck at ￰9￱ believed they would want something new to bet on besides sports or stocks.

So, from his bathroom, he started coding ￰10￱ platform went live in June ￰11￱ battles the government The product was fast and ￰12￱ didn’t like ￰13￱ Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ruled that Polymarket was operating illegally, and ￰14￱ were blocked. Still, the platform kept ￰15￱ wanted to bet on elections, interest rate cuts, or who would be Time Magazine’s Person of the ￰16￱ the 2024 ￰17￱ election, users put down more than $3 billion. A week later, FBI agents raided Shayne’s apartment, seizing his ￰18￱ company called the move “obvious political retribution.” This was not the first time Shayne and his company had to deal with the ￰19￱ 2022, Polymarket agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle allegations of illegal ￰20￱ company did not admit wrongdoing but kept ￰21￱ ￰22￱ July 2025, the Justice Department and the CFTC had both dropped their ￰23￱ same month, Polymarket announced it had acquired QCEX, a licensed exchange and clearinghouse, for $112 ￰24￱ that deal, Polymarket could finally bring back legal ￰25￱ bet on Shayne The money around Shayne kept ￰26￱ this year, Polymarket raised $255 ￰27￱ included Peter Thiel, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, and Blockchain ￰28￱ 2024, 1789 Capital also ￰29￱ deal came with Donald Trump ￰30￱ the company as an adviser in August, while also advising rival ￰31￱ biggest news dropped when Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, announced it would put up to $2 billion into Polymarket at an $8 billion valuation.

ICE’s CEO Jeffrey Sprecher is married to Kelly Loeffler, who now leads the Small Business Administration under President Donald ￰32￱ connection makes Polymarket’s ties to Washington even deeper. Shayne’s competitors are growing too. Kalshi, through a partnership with Robinhood, began offering prediction ￰33￱ reported over 2 billion trades in the third ￰34￱ growth put pressure on gambling ￰35￱ the day ICE’s deal with Polymarket was revealed, shares of Caesars Entertainment and DraftKings both fell more than 5%. Now, Shayne’s company is the largest prediction market in the world, handling over $3.2 billion in bets on the 2024 election alone and getting heavy media ￰36￱ buying cheap Ethereum in 2014, to building Polymarket from his bathroom in 2020, to fighting raids and penalties, Shayne has made it into a position no one else his age has ever ￰37￱ is the youngest billionaire on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index , and for him, the bets keep ￰38￱ smartest crypto minds already read our ￰39￱ in?

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