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The Other Option - By Clif High

Clearly Cogitating: Who are you going to call?

“They tried to kill each other”, the driver shouted over the din of clanging and banging as the Humvee lurched slowly over the uneven surface. He turned slightly toward the two passengers in the back to try to make himself heard, “all of them. They went fucking crazy.”

The old man in the back seat looks to his companions, his bushy eyebrows arched and bristling.

“You say they went fucking crazy. How did it manifest?”, the woman passenger queried the driver.

“I don’t know”, the driver yelled back over the noise. “First Sargent said that they were all shooting and hitting at each other...it was a real brawl in there. I don’t know much more than that...just that they were there only minutes, and tried to kill each other.”

“Did any succeed?” asked the old man, holding onto his case as the Humvee rose, fell, and bounced slowly forward into the deepening dark of the in-creeping night.

“Yes. Some of them were killed.” The driver responded before turning his attention back to his task.

Somewhere, in the receding distance of the dark, damp night, dogs were howling at the long convoy of heavy vehicles slowly moving through the forest.

The Humvee rolled over the last of the logs acting as a bridge over the small creek, its armor giving the impression of a hippo trying to walk a tightrope as the thick tires dropped down, displacing the gravel on the hastily created road and sinking into the rain softened, sandy soil. As it bounced down off the log bridge, the Humvee’s headlights flash across the small and large stumps littering the area, piled into dark, tall lumps of twisted black masses, the gnarly roots holding each other like hands desperately gripping each other.

The driver had his face up against the window of the Humvee, squinting into the deepening darkness as the last of the day’s light faded behind him. There was a steady, misty rain filling the air that the locals called ‘hanging dew’. The vehicle he drove seemed to cut a tunnel through the fog of the dew as the lights from the convoy behind him flashed as each vehicle in turn dropped the 6 inches off the end of the log bridge onto the road, hastily cut through the forest late that afternoon as the Engineers were preparing the site chosen for Operation Response.

The Humvee leveled out as all the tires came down on the gravel road. The driver increased speed slightly as his passengers sorted out their bags and cases of gear.

The trio were a surprising group, not only to their assigned driver, but to all the military people along the way of their transport to the Operation Rescue site. The helicopter pilots were certain that only the old man had been in a Chinook before. His two companions, though younger, were still middle aged, parent figures to the two young pilots who were both taken aback, and somewhat charmed by their VIP passengers’ excitement over the flight. The two ‘younger’ passengers were nearly giddy as they stored & lashed their equipment under the old man’s direction.

When the Humvee driver had collected his three VIP passengers at the hastily created helipad field about 20 miles down beach from the Operation Response site, he was surprised to find that they were in uniform. Unlike the first batch of VIPs that had been brought in, four of whom he had driven who were dressed in suits, this new group was all in uniform. True, they were uniforms unlike anything he had seen in his Army career, but they were clearly uniforms. Tactical pants and shirts, field jackets, though these looked like Navy issue, and hard fabric, tactical caps. The old man’s jacket had Captain on his center patch, while the woman was identified by her patch as Commander, and the younger man was a Lieutenant. Their unit patch said Field Team, while their organization was identified as Human Contact Foundation.

The driver was relieved to see the uniforms descending off the Chinook. Even more relieved to see the old man jump off the helicopter and start pointing out a few small boxes to the flight crew to be moved to the Humvee. The few boxes only would fill the Humvee, leaving the two 6 ton trucks empty.

“Sir,” the driver said, addressing the Captain with a sharp salute, “is there more gear to be moved? Both trucks are here with crews at your disposal.”

The Captain looked around, waved in the general direction of the trucks with a quizzical look on his face. “No, this is it. All our gear. Should fit in your rig there.” he said. “Why did they send trucks?”

The driver responded as he offered the Captain a sealed, bulging, mission packet envelope. “The previous group had lots of stuff. They brought maybe 10 tons of equipment. It took us hours to get loaded. The General thought maybe you, too, had lots of stuff.”

It took nearly an hour for the Humvee to cover the 20 miles of rural oceanfront roadway to the take off road rudely carved out of the buffering forest and head down the steep foothill terrain toward the dunes on the other side of an inconvenient creek. Once the log bridge had been traversed, it was barely five more minutes of groaning engine pushing the Humvee through soft salt marsh before they arrived at their destination, the prep site for Operation Response.

The three HCF personnel were rapidly moved into the tent where they greedily accepted proffered coffee, and met the General in charge of the operation.

The General had barely begun to introduce himself when the HCF Captain spoke up from slurping coffee. “General. What happened to the previous group?”

The General, annoyed at being preempted, waved at a Major down the table who jumped up and spat out, “Three dead on site. Three died on the way to the medics. Three were ‘retrieved’ alive.” the Major intoned, then continued, “we don’t know where the other 10 are. No sign of them. And of course we can’t ask.” This last was met with a passing snarly face from the General.

The old man, the HCF Captain, clearly older than the General, held up his left hand as the General started to speak. He went back to drinking down the rest, then passed the coffee cup back to the mess attendant for a refill, before looking up at the assembled mass of worried faces across the table.

“Has The Effect altered? Stopped? Reduced? Has there been any changes while we traveled?” asked the HCF Captain.

“No sir. No changes.” the General responded. “We have it under direct, and electronic observation. Those screens over there are the various IR, and other cams. No movement since the initial contact.”

“And the field?” asked the HCF Commander.

The General again waved to the Major.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Said the Major. “The field is still visible. The object is still there, still floating about 20 feet up off grade. It still does that wobble every 21 seconds. “

“No reaction from the object when the other team went batshit?” The HCF Captain asked the Major.

“No sir. It just sat there the whole time.” The Major said, reaching for large photos on the table and sliding them down to the HCF team. “Even when we sent the bomb disposal drones into retrieve the bodies and the wounded...no reaction. It just sits there.”

The Major continued, pointing at one of the photographs, “the object wobbled just as the team’s truck was entering the field, but no way to know if it was a catalyst. The science team just went crazy within minutes of getting in to the field. They had barely started to set up their gear when they started attacking each other.”

A long silence followed carried on the shuffling of papers and clang of metal coffee cups.

“Ok, Captain.” The General spoke the rank with a sarcastic sharp edge, “what now?”.

“Well, General”, replied the HCF Captain, “we three will get to work...”

“..and do what? Exactly?” The General’s tone rose with him as he stood up, leaning his bulk on the table. “You people were forced on me by chain of command. What the fuck are you going to do that the best science team in the world could not?! Those 19 people were from the top universities and government think tanks on this planet. And you? Who the fuck ever heard of Human Contact Foundation?”

“No one.” responded the HCF Commander. Standing up as well, and moving her hands in sweeping gesture indicating the whole of the planet outside the confines of the tent. “We work as we work. You are not supposed to know about us. We emerge with need. Which is now.”

The HCF Captain waved them both to sit. “General, if I had been allowed to continue…”, he picks up the coffee cup, empty again, waving it around until taken for a refill. “General, the power structure of this planet is freaking out. Right now. All around the world. They have a situation that they put YOU in charge of handling, and it is not going well! The Powers That Be had a hand picked team collected from all over this planet, brought here to deal with this situation, and they just shat themselves mentally, and died.”

A slurp of the new coffee, and he continued. “Guys, this is the point where you listen to me. Not only hear me, but listen…. We…”, the HCF Captain gestured at his companions, “….are The Other Option.”

“That previous team was sent by the WEF. That is the World Economic Forum. They were the top dogs of academia and NGO-world, personally selected by the top power of the world. They were published scientists. They were at the top of their game, and at the top of the social order’s organizations devoted to the politics of science.” The HCF Captain looked around for understanding on the faces of the attendees before continuing. “We, on the other hand, are just some people who like to think. We think a lot. We think deeply, and we think clearly. We thought up the Human Contact Foundation BECAUSE we can think clearly about a subject, and its ripples, and ramifications in our reality. We knew that a need would arise, so the HCF was set up to provide us a vehicle to interact with ‘normie-world’, where, as you may have observed, not many people think, or think well.”

“The previous team, the WEFfers, did not think clearly about things. They cannot think clearly about our reality because of their basic approach to Life, Universe, and Everything.” The HCF Captain said, nodding to the HCF Lieutenant, who produced a file folder from his case, handing it over to the General.

“As you can see General, from those notes made over 4 years ago, we had anticipated something very close to this situation developing, and have thought about what to do.” Stated the HCF Captain. “It must be obvious from the results, that the first team, the WEFfers, did not...think that is. And now a bunch are dead, and the rest missing, or ….what? Probably something close to catatonic, would be my guess..?”

“Correct.” The Major spouted off rapidly, surprising everyone.

“Our thinking is based from a different approach to Universe than the WEFfers. Here’s your history lesson for today”, said the HCF Captain, looking around the room, then settling his gaze on the General. “There have only, ever, been two theories about reality devised; the quantum mechanics view of reality as being composed of atoms randomly bumping into each other, and the understanding of universe as arising from the field dynamics of the Aether.”

The HCF Captain stood up, and said, “the WEF team were atomists. Plus being mainly administrators, corrupt fuckers, and not actual scientists….not actual thinkers. They were blind to the field dynamics of reality, even though they were here to investigate the field holding that object up off the ground with no apparent means of support. We are Aetherists. We grok fields. Simple as that. Plus we have had a lot of time to think about it, while waiting for this development.”

“So, you ask what next…, well, what we are going to do is to put on some special clothing we had made, anticipating just this form of field appearance, such as our copper, conductive boots, and go have a look at this object. Maybe have a conversation with whomever sent it.” Said the HCF Captain. “They are probably thinkers too. Now, let us get to work!”

As the HCF team rose to follow the Captain, the Lieutenant put a stack of cards on the table. On one side was written:

Space Aliens!

Who are you going to call when your contact attempts go sideways?

While on the other was a telephone number, and

The Human Contact Foundation.

We think clearly.

###End###

The WEFfers are evil bastards!

No doubt about it. The members of the World Economic Forum gang are fuckers at a global level. The WEF is the face of the alpha dog of evil conspiracy on this planet. The WEF members are politicians, NGO founders, corporate functionaries, and other high profile people.

The WEF is the face of the global conspiracy to rule the world which came pretty close to actually manifesting. It won’t, but not for lack of the WEF members working for it.

As a conspiracy, the WEF plan was pretty slick. It has many vulnerabilities which are being exploited now, as it is falling apart, but the plan itself was clever. One of its major flaws was the reliance on politicians, another on using blackmail and murder as tools for coercion. Politicians, not known for their intelligence, are, at best, a very unreliable tool, especially in an age of corrupt institutions. The WEF plan required both corrupt politicians, and corrupt institutions. The implementation by the WEF of infiltration, and subversion via individual corruption did work, sort of, but it has the effect of segregating the population by susceptibility to corruption, which, turns out is highly correlated with intelligence. So, in essence, the WEF plan has naturally built a global crew of incompetents and stupid people.

Stated another way for comprehension, the entire power structure, reinforced over time by the WEF, as a side effect of its design, aggregates, and collects, and supports stupidity, and provides it with power to replicate.

Do you really want to leave THE MOST IMPORTANT CONTACT ever for Humanity in the hands of the WEFfers? They are assuming that they are in charge of this, as well as all other aspects of YOUR life.

The Human Contact Foundation does not.

It’s real.

They are out there…. thinking.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/these-planets-could-host-alien-life/

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He has to do it this way so there isn't a revolution on the government's hands. If THEY just came out and told you it has always been voluntary, the people would rise up and take to the streets. There would be mass chaos. -Crypto Michael ⚡️The Dinarian

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🚨 “WHAT HAPPENED IN CRYPTO TODAY” – COINTELEGRAPH’S DAILY WRAP 🚨

Cointelegraph’s live-blog snapshot (edition: 27 Nov 2025) packs the market-moving headlines, on-chain sparks and policy sound-bites that ricocheted through crypto in 24 hrs – from a surprise Basel stablecoin concession to a record open-interest print on BTC futures.

🔑 Key Headlines

🔹️ Basel Boost: BCBS officially dropped the punitive 1 250 % risk-weight for bank-held stablecoins (Tether, USDC) and replaced it with a tiered 20 %–100 % framework – unleashing a 2.4 B intraday rally in stablecoin issuer tokens and bank-centric DeFi plays.

🔹️ BTC Open Interest Record: Aggregate perpetual & futures OI hit 53.8 B (Deribit + CME + Binance) – 7 % above April peak – as whales added 1.1 B long exposure ahead of Friday’s 0-DTE expiry; funding flipped +18 % annualised.

🔹️ Nasdaq Tokenized Equities Live: Nasdaq’s ATS-Clearing hybrid went live with 3 private-company tokens; first trade executed 4.3 M face value in T+0 settlement, marking the first regulated U.S. exchange to custody & ...

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👉 Coinbase just launched an AI agent for Crypto Trading

Custom AI assistants that print money in your sleep? 🔜

The future of Crypto x AI is about to go crazy.

👉 Here’s what you need to know:

💠 'Based Agent' enables creation of custom AI agents
💠 Users set up personalized agents in < 3 minutes
💠 Equipped w/ crypto wallet and on-chain functions
💠 Capable of completing trades, swaps, and staking
💠 Integrates with Coinbase’s SDK, OpenAI, & Replit

👉 What this means for the future of Crypto:

1. Open Access: Democratized access to advanced trading
2. Automated Txns: Complex trades + streamlined on-chain activity
3. AI Dominance: Est ~80% of crypto 👉txns done by AI agents by 2025

🚨 I personally wouldn't bet against Brian Armstrong and Jesse Pollak.

👉 Coinbase just launched an AI agent for Crypto Trading

If you're using a Ledger Nano X, Flex, or Stax device, the most recent update has also introduced a Bluetooth pairing issue....

Not to worry, you just need to delete the existing device pairing and re-pair it to get it working again.

https://support.ledger.com/article/15158192560157-zd

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LATEST: 🚨 The official Pepe memecoin site has reportedly been compromised to redirect users to malicious links containing Inferno Drainer code, with Blockaid warning users to stay clear until the issue is resolved.
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In a landmark first for U.S. digital-asset regulation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has officially green-lighted spot crypto trading on federally registered exchanges, starting with Chicago-based Bitnomial this week. The move brings Bitcoin, Ether and other commodity-tokens under the same century-old regulatory umbrella that governs U.S. futures, options and swaps—complete with leverage, unified margin and clearing-house protection.

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XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network

XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network marks a silent shift to connect the digital trade infrastructure to real-time, tokenized settlement rails.

In a world where cross-border payments still take days and trap trillions in idle liquidity, integrating Contour’s trade workflows with XDC Network Blockchains' ISO 20022 financial messaging standard to bridge TradFi and Web3 in Trade Finance.

The Current State of Cross-Border Trade Settlements

Cross-border payments remain one of the most inefficient parts of global finance. For decades, companies have inter-dependency with banks and their correspondent banks across the world, forcing them to maintain trillions of dollars in pre-funded nostro and vostro balances — the capital that sits idle while transactions crawl across borders.

Traditional settlement is slow, often 1–5 days, and often with ~2-3% in FX and conversion fees. For every hour a corporation can’t access its own cash increases the cost of financing, tightens liquidity that could be used for other purposes, which in turn slows economic activity.

Before SWIFT, payments were fully manual. Intermediary banks maintained ledgers, and reconciliation across multiple institutions limited speed and volume.

SWIFT reshaped global payments by introducing a secure, standardized messaging infrastructure through ISO 20022 - which quickly became the language of money for 11,000+ institutions in 200 countries.

But SWIFT only fixed the messaging — not the movement. Actual value still moves through slow, capital-intensive correspondent chains.

Regulated and Compliant Stablecoin such as USDC (Circle) solves the part SWIFT never could: instant, on-chain settlement.

Stablecoin Settlement revamping Trade and Tokenization

Stablecoin such as USDC is a digital token pegged to the US Dollar, still the most widely used currency for trade, enabling the movement of funds instantly 24*7 globally - transparently, instantly, and without the need for any intermediaries and the need to lock in trillions of dollars of idle cash.

Tokenized settlement replaces multi-day reconciliation with on-chain finality, reducing:

  • Dependency on intermediaries
  • Operational friction
  • Trillions locked in idle liquidity

For corporates trapped in long working capital cycles, this is transformative.

Digital dollars like USDC make the process simple:

Fiat → Stablecoin → On-Chain Transfer → Fiat

This hybrid model is already widely used across remittances, payouts, and treasury flows.

But one critical piece of global commerce is still lagging:

👉 Trade finance.

The Missing link is still Trade Finance Infrastructure.

While payments innovation has raced ahead, trade finance infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Document flows, letters of credit, and supply-chain financing remain siloed, paper-heavy, and operationally outdated.

This is exactly where the next breakthrough will happen - and why the recent XDC Network acquisition of Contour is a silent revolution.

It transforms to a new era of trade-driven liquidity through an end-to-end digital trade from shipping docs to payment confirmation – one infrastructure that powers all.

The breakthrough won’t come from payments alone — it will come from connecting trade finance to real-time settlement rails.

The XDC + Contour Shift: A Silent Revolution

  • Contour already connects global banks and corporates through digital LCs and digitized trade workflows.
  • XDC Blockchain brings a settlement layer built for speed, tokenization, and institutional-grade interoperability and ISO 20022 messaging compatibility

Contour’s digital letter of credit workflows will be integrated with XDC’s blockchain network to streamline trade documentation and settlement.

Together, they form the first end-to-end digital trade finance network linking:

Documentation → Validation → Settlement all under a single infrastructure.

XDC Ventures (XVC.TECH) is launching a Stable-Coin Lab to work with financial institutions on regulated stablecoin pilots for trade to deepen institutional trade-finance integration through launch of pilots with banks and corporates for regulated stable-coin issuance and settlement.

The Bottom Line

Payments alone won’t transform Global Trade Finance — Trade finance + Tokenized Settlement will.

This is the shift happening underway XDC Network's acquisition of Contour is the quiet catalyst.

Learn how trade finance is being revolutionised:

https://www.reuters.com/press-releases/xdc-ventures-acquires-contour-network-launches-stablecoin-lab-trade-finance-2025-10-22/

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Inside The Deal That Made Polymarket’s Founder One Of The Youngest Billionaires On Earth🌍

One year ago, the FBI raided Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan’s apartment. Now, the college dropout is a billionaire at age 27.

In July, Jeffrey Sprecher, the 70-year-old billionaire CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, sat at Manhatta, an upscale restaurant in the financial district overlooking the sprawling New York City skyline from the 60th floor. As a sommelier weaved through tables pouring wine, in walked Shayne Coplan—in a T-shirt and jeans, clutching a plastic water bottle and a paper bag with a bagel he’d picked up en route. Sprecher chuckles as he recalls his first impression of the boyish, eccentric entrepreneur: “An old bald guy that works at the New York Stock Exchange, where we require that you wear a suit and tie, next to a mop-headed guy in a T-shirt that's 27.” But Sprecher was fascinated by Polymarket, Coplan’s blockchain-based prediction market, and after dinner, he made his move: “I asked Shayne if he would consider selling us his company.”

Prediction markets like Polymarket let thousands of ordinary people bet on future events—the unemployment rate, say, or when BitCoin will hit an all-time high. In aggregate, prediction market bets have proven to be something of a crystal ball with the wisdom of the crowd often proving itself more prescient than expert opinion. For instance, Polymarket punters predicted that Trump would prevail in the 2024 presidential election, when many national pundits were sure that Kamala Harris would win.

Coplan initially turned down Sprecher’s buyout offer. But discussions led to negotiations and eventually a deal. In October, Intercontinental announced it had invested $2 billion for an up to 25% stake in the company, bringing the young solo founder the balance he was looking for. “We're consumer, we’re viral, we're culture. They’re finance, they’re headless and they’re infrastructure,” Coplan tells Forbes in a recent interview.

At the same time, Coplan announced investments from other billionaires including Figma’s Dylan Field, Zynga’s Mark Pincus, Uber’s Travis Kalanick and hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin. A longtime Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, Coplan even convinced lead singer Anthony Kiedis to invest after a mutual acquaintance brought the musician to Coplan’s apartment one day. “He's buzzing my door, and I’m like, ‘holy shit,'” Coplan recalls, his bright blue eyes widening. “I love their music. A lot of the inspiration [for my work] comes from the music that I listen to.”

Thanks to the deals, Polymarket’s valuation quickly shot to $9 billion, making the 2025 Under 30 alum the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, with an estimated 11% stake worth $1 billion. His reign was short: twenty days later, he was overtaken as the youngest by the three 22-year-old founders of AI startup Mercor.

Young entrepreneurs are minting ten-figure fortunes faster than ever. In addition to the Mercor trio and Coplan, 15 other Under 30 alumni—including ScaleAI cofounder Lucy Guo, Reddit’s Steve Huffman and Cursor’s cofounders—became billionaires this year, while Guo’s cofounder Alexandr Wang and Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev (both former Under 30 honorees) regained their billionaire status after having fallen out of the ranks.

The budding billionaire has long been fascinated by markets and tech. When he was just 14, Coplan emailed the regional Securities and Exchange Commission office to ask how to create new marketplaces. “I did not get a response, but it’s a really funny email,” he says, grinning playfully as he thinks of his younger self. “It just shows that this stuff takes over a decade of percolating in your mind.”

Two years later, Coplan showed up at the offices of internet startup Genius uninvited after multiple emails of his asking for an internship went ignored. At age 16—at least a decade younger than anyone in that office—he secured his first job after making a memorable impression with his “wild curls” and “encyclopedic knowledge of billionaire tech entrepreneurs.” “If he chooses to become a tech entrepreneur, which seems likely, I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing his name again in the press before long,” Chris Glazek, his manager at the time, wrote in Coplan’s college recommendation letter.

Coplan went on to study computer science at NYU, but dropped out in 2017 to work on various crypto projects that never took off. In 2020, he founded Polymarket to create a solution to the “rampant misinformation” he saw in the world: The company’s first market allowed users to bet on when New York City would reopen amid the pandemic. He soon expanded into elections and pop culture happenings, among other events.

But it didn’t take long for the company to butt heads with regulators. In January 2022, Polymarket paid a $1.4 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for offering unregistered markets. It was also ordered to block all U.S. users, but activity on Polymarket skyrocketed particularly during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with bets totaling $3.6 billion. A week after the election, the FBI raided Coplan's apartment and seized his devices as part of an investigation into a possible violation of this agreement. Shortly after, Coplan posted on his X account that he saw the raid as “a last-ditch effort” from the Biden administration “to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents.”

In July, the Department of Justice and CFTC dropped the investigations—after which Sprecher reached out to Coplan for dinner—and less than a week later, Polymarket announced it had acquired CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCX to prepare for a compliant U.S. launch. QCX applied to be a federally-registered exchange in 2022—an application that was left dormant for three years before receiving approval less than two weeks before the acquisition was announced. When asked about the timing of the deal, Coplan points to CFTC acting chairwoman Caroline Pham, who President Trump tapped to lead the agency in January. “Caroline deserves a lot of credit for getting every single license that had been paused for no reason approved, as acting chairwoman in less than a year,” he says. Coplan had realized an acquisition might be the only way for Polymarket to legally operate in the U.S. as early as 2021 due to the lengthy federal approval process, a source familiar with the deal told Forbes.

Just two months after the acquisition and days after Donald Trump Jr. joined Polymarket’s advisory board, the company received federal approval to launch in the U.S. (Trump Jr. has also served as a strategic advisor to Polymarket’s main competitor Kalshi since January.)

Polymarket’s rapid rise has drawn critics. Dennis Kelleher, co-founder and CEO of Washington-based financial advocacy group Better Markets, told Forbes in an email that the current administration’s deregulation around prediction markets has unlocked a regulatory “loophole” to enable “unregulated gambling” under the CFTC, “which has zero expertise, capacity or resources to regulate and police these markets.” Kelleher added that with backing from the Trump family “who are directly trying to profit on this new gambling den… the massive deregulation and crypto hysteria will almost certainly end badly for the American people.”

Investors and businesses are scrambling to seize the moment of deregulation. “We had opportunities to invest in events markets earlier, but there was a lot of risk,” Sprecher says, listing the regulatory changes in favor of crypto and prediction markets under the current administration. “This was the moment to invest if we wanted to still be early in the space.”

In the last few months, Trump’s Truth Social and sportsbook FanDuel, as well as cryptocurrency exchanges Crypto.com, Coinbase and Gemini all announced their own plans to offer prediction markets. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said prediction markets, which were integrated into its platform in March, were helping drive record activity for the retail brokerage in its third quarter earnings call.

“People are starting to realize right now that the opportunities are endless,” says Dubin, the billionaire hedge fund veteran who invested in Polymarket earlier this year. He points to sports betting companies, which have been regulated by states as gambling activity and taxed accordingly. States like New York can tax up to 51% of sportsbooks’ revenue, but federally-regulated prediction markets can bypass state laws, avoiding taxes and operating in all 50 states. With the realization that prediction markets could upend the sports betting industry—which brought in $13.7 billion in revenue in 2024—businesses are quickly jumping on board despite pushback from state gambling regulators. In October, both Polymarket and Kalshi secured partnerships with sportsbook PrizePicks and the National Hockey League, and Polymarket announced exclusive partnerships with sportsbook DraftKings and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The disruption won’t be limited to sports betting. Alongside its investment, Intercontinental’s tens of thousands of institutional clients including large hedge funds and over 750 third-party providers of data will soon have access to Polymarket data, as it gets integrated into Intercontinental’s products such as indices to better inform investment decisions. It also hopes to work with Polymarket to work on initiatives around tokenization—or converting financial assets into digital tokens on blockchain technology—to allow traders on Intercontinental’s exchanges to trade more flexibly at all hours of the day, Sprecher says. What’s more, in November, Google Finance announced it would integrate Polymarket and Kalshi data into its search results, while Yahoo Finance also announced an exclusive partnership with Polymarket.

Despite flashy investors, partnerships and a record $2.4 billion of trading volume in November, Polymarket has yet to launch in the U.S. or turn a profit. Coplan and his investors have hinted at ways the company could make money one day—selling its data, charging fees to users, launching a cryptocurrency token (similar to Ethereum or Bitcoin)—but decline to confirm any specifics. For now, the only thing that’s certain is the bet Coplan is making on himself. “Going for it and having it not pan out is an infinitely better outcome than living your life as a what if,” he says.

Standing across from the New York Stock Exchange building, Coplan tilts his head up as he watches a massive banner with Polymarket’s logo get hoisted onto the exterior of the building. It’s been five years since founding. One year since the FBI raid. He’s taking it all in. “Against all odds,” the bright blue banner reads, rippling in the wind alongside three American flags protruding from the building.

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Epstein-Linked Emails Expose Funding Ties to Bitcoin Core Development — Here Is What the Documents Reveal
  • Newly released emails show Jeffrey Epstein helped fund MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, which supported Bitcoin Core development.
  • The documents also confirm that Leon Black donated to MIT’s Media Lab through Epstein-directed channels.
  • The revelations reshape part of Bitcoin’s early institutional funding history and highlight long-hidden influence from controversial donors.

Newly unsealed emails from the House Oversight Committee have shed fresh light on Jeffrey Epstein’s hidden financial influence inside MIT’s Media Lab — and more importantly, how some of that money flowed into Bitcoin Core development. The correspondence reveals that Joichi Ito, then-director of the MIT Media Lab, relied on Epstein-connected “gift funds” to rapidly launch the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) in 2015, the research hub that became one of the primary sources of funding for Bitcoin’s core developers.

Emails Show Epstein-Connected Money Helped Launch MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative

In the newly surfaced emails, Ito directly thanked Epstein for the financial help that allowed MIT to “move quickly and win this round,” referring to the formation of DCI — a program explicitly designed to provide long-term support for Bitcoin Core contributors after the collapse of the Bitcoin Foundation. Ito’s forwarded message to Epstein described how the foundation’s implosion left core developers without stable funding, creating an opening for MIT to bring them under its umbrella.

He explained that three major developers — including Wladimir van der Laan and Cory Fields — agreed to join MIT, calling it “a big win for us.” The email also highlighted early support from prominent academics, including cryptographer Ron Rivest and IMF economist Simon Johnson. Epstein simply replied: “gavin is clever.”

Funding Numbers Reveal a Much Larger Financial Trail

MIT publicly claimed that Epstein donated $850,000 to the institution, with $525,000 flowing to the Media Lab. But journalist Ronan Farrow later reported the true figure was closer to $7.5 million — including a $5 million anonymous donation connected to Epstein associate Leon Black. The new emails appear to confirm that Black not only donated, but did so through Epstein’s direction.

One email from Ito to Epstein reads: “We were able to keep the Leon Black money, but the $25K from your foundation is getting bounced by MIT back to ASU.”

 

Epstein responded: “No problem — trying to get more black for you.”

The documents reveal Epstein’s influence reached deeper into Bitcoin circles than previously acknowledged, even including early conversations with Brock Pierce — another figure with documented ties to both Epstein and controversy surrounding early crypto foundations.

MIT’s Internal Concerns and the Fallout

The emails also expose MIT’s internal unease around anonymous or reputationally risky donations. After the scandal broke, Ito resigned in 2019. MIT later tightened donation policies, warning that “everything becomes public” eventually — a statement that now seems prophetic given this week’s disclosures.

Developers like Wladimir van der Laan say they were unaware of the extent of Epstein’s involvement and noted that DCI’s funding transparency “was not great back in the day.” The Media Lab and DCI declined to comment.

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