How Shayne Coplan Built Polymarket From Scratch and Redefined Prediction Markets

When Shayne Coplan launched Polymarket, he had no team, funding, or institutional support—just a laptop, a blockchain, and an unshakable belief in decentralized innovation. Speaking at Cantor Fitzgerald’s Crypto, AI, and Blockchain Conference in Miami Beach, Coplan recalled his humble beginnings: “I literally started with next to no money. The beauty of blockchains is they empower anyone, anywhere, to innovate.”

Founded in 2020, Polymarket enables users to trade on the outcomes of real-world events—ranging from elections and economic policy to entertainment. Unlike polls or expert forecasts, Polymarket lets market dynamics determine the odds. “Markets are honest,” Coplan said. “They represent conviction backed by risk.”

Every trade on Polymarket is peer-to-peer, ensuring that prices reflect real-time collective sentiment rather than centralized control. Coplan emphasized that traditional sportsbooks manipulate odds and restrict winners, while Polymarket promotes fair, transparent, and permissionless trading.

He believes the platform’s potential extends far beyond politics and entertainment. Prediction markets, he explained, can support smarter public policy and decision-making, modeling scenarios such as how candidate withdrawals could affect election outcomes. In industries like insurance, Coplan envisions decentralized markets helping individuals hedge exotic risks more efficiently than traditional institutions.

As the company expands its U.S. presence through a new beta exchange, Coplan is also eyeing the role of AI agents capable of reading sentiment, identifying mispriced assets, and automatically trading to correct market inefficiencies.

Ultimately, his vision for Polymarket embodies blockchain’s promise: open, fair, and data-driven finance. “We just try to build the best product,” Coplan said. “Something people love to use—where your opinion actually matters.”