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👀 Pfizer’s ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ — and Legacy Media’s Failure to Report on Them 💉

Pfizer knew about the inadequacies of its COVID-19 vaccine trials and the vaccine’s many serious adverse effects, and so did the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But the FDA promoted the vaccines anyway — and later tried to hide the data from the public, according to Naomi Wolf, editor of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.”

In an interview with The Defender, Wolf detailed the serious vaccine-related injuries that Pfizer and the FDA knew of by early 2021, based on the data from Pfizer’s clinical trials and post-marketing studies.

To produce “The Pfizer Papers,” Wolf, a journalist and CEO of Daily Clout, and Daily Clout Chief Operations Officer Amy Kelly convened thousands of volunteer scientists and doctors to analyze Pfizer data and supplementary data from other public reporting systems to capture the full scope of the vaccines’ effects. They

Wolf and Kelly obtained the data from the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, a group of more than 30 medical professionals and scientists who sued the FDA in 2021 to force the agency to release the data, after the FDA refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request.

A federal court in 2022 ordered the agency to release 450,000 internal documents pertaining to the licensing of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

● No journalist could take on the ‘Pfizer Papers’ alone

Wolf worked for decades as a journalist in liberal legacy media. In 2020, as she watched the rights to free assembly and other liberties suspended under the guise of emergency declarations, she became a vocal critic of the constitutional violations imposed on Americans, she told The Defender.

Wolf was equally critical of the COVID-19 vaccines and alarmed by the widespread use of incentives to get people to take the emergency use authorized shots. “I’m not a medical doctor, I’m not a scientist,” she said. “I was an English major and even I know how dangerous that is. It’s madness.”

In June 2021, Wolf tweeted her concern that there were widespread reports women were suffering menstrual dysregulation after taking the shots. She called for more investigation.

“Immediately the next day, I was deplatformed from every social media platform,” she said. “And simultaneous hit pieces that were nearly identical were launched in pretty much every major news outlet” — including outlets for which she had been a columnist.

“All over the world and in every language I was turned into an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist overnight,” she said.

Wolf was exiled from legacy media, but new doors opened. “Steve Bannon invited me on ‘The War Room’ and gave me a platform,” she said. There, she discussed the challenge of sifting through the Pfizer documents released by the FDA.

The data release was monumental and the documents were highly technical and scientific. “No journalist could have the bandwidth to go through them all,” Wolf said.

Bannon suggested she organize a volunteer team of scientists to take up the charge. Wolf put out a call and 3,250 highly credentialed scientists responded. Kelly organized them into working groups that have systematically issued key reports about what Wolf said, “turns out to be the greatest crime against humanity in recorded history.”

“The Pfizer documents are a stunning revelation of corporate greed and dishonesty, with utter disregard for the law, and Americans’ actual health,” Bannon wrote in his introduction to the book.

● A ‘crime against humanity’

Wolf told The Defender that because her grandparents lost eight siblings in the Holocaust, she didn’t use the language “crime against humanity” lightly. However, she said, the reports make clear that given what Pfizer knew about the damage to human health caused by the mRNA COVID-19 shots, “There’s no way to avoid concluding that this is not carelessness, it’s not greed, it’s not sloppiness at the manufacturing plant.”

“As they say in tech, ‘it’s not a bug, it’s a feature,’” she said. “In other words, damaging humans in very specific ways, very early on, was obviously a result of these injections. And instead of stopping, or pulling them off the market, Pfizer doubled down, the FDA doubled down and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] doubled down.”

Wolf said Pfizer, the FDA and CDC made those decisions knowing that 1,223 people died from the shots in the first three months. They did it knowing that the vaccine didn’t stop infection, that it caused a long list of serious side effects in tens of thousands of people, she said.

Pfizer also manipulated data to get the FDA to sign off on the emergency use authorization (EUA), she said. In what Wolf called “one of the most damning reports in this book,” Australian anesthesiologist Dr. Jeyanthi Kunadhasan’s team found that Pfizer delayed recording deaths so they did not have to be included as part of its EUA data filing.

The researchers concluded that if Pfizer had recorded and reported the deaths in a timely manner, the FDA wouldn’t have been able to grant an EUA for the vaccine.

● 42,000 serious adverse events in three months, mostly in women

The “Pfizer Papers” analysts found over 42,000 case reports detailing 158,893 adverse events reported to Pfizer in the first three months following the December 2020 EUA. To process the large volume of reports, the company added 600 additional employees, the documents showed, with plans to hire a total of 1,800 people by June 2021.

Wolf said:

“These are tens of thousands of blood clots, lung clots, leg clots, neurological disorders, epilepsies, dementia, Alzheimer’s, bell’s palsy, tremors, convulsions, liver damage, kidney damage, stroke, so many kinds of skin eruptions, eye damage, blindness, respiratory illness.”

The most common side effect was myalgia or muscle pain and the second-most common side effect was joint pain, which people often don’t realize is related to the injection, she said. The third most common side effect was COVID-19 because the vaccine didn’t stop transmission.

However, “the centerpiece” of “The Pfizer Papers” is Pfizer’s experimentation on human reproduction, Wolf said. The papers reveal that Pfizer knew early on that the shots were causing menstrual damage at scale, she said.

The company reported to the FDA that 72% of the recorded adverse events were in women. Of those, about 16% involved reproductive disorders and functions.

The papers show that in the clinical trials, thousands of women experienced daily bleeding, hemorrhaging, and passing of tissue, and thousands of women reported that their menstrual cycle stopped completely.

“They knew they were ruining women,” she said.

Pfizer even told vaccinated men not to have intercourse with women of childbearing age, and if they did, to use two reliable forms of contraception, she added.

● Effects on babies ‘will chill your soul’

Pfizer was aware that lipid nanoparticles from the shots accumulated in the ovaries and crossed the placental barrier, compromising the placenta and keeping nutrients from the baby in utero, Wolf said.

Babies had to be delivered early, she said, and women were hemorrhaging in childbirth.

That also means that the particles entered the amniotic sac, and the membranes around the testes of baby boys, according to the papers. The future effects on those baby boys are unknown.

One of the most disturbing reports in the papers, she said, is the pregnancy lactation report, “that will chill your soul.” The report describes the effects on nursing babies of recently vaccinated mothers. The list includes fever, vomiting and edema, or swollen tissue, among many other issues.

“One baby convulsed and died in the hospital of multi-organ failure,” Wolf said. “These babies were inconsolable. They [Pfizer] knew they were poisoning breast milk, and to this day they haven’t told vaccinated moms not to breastfeed.”

The report also includes a description of two babies who died in utero, she said, which Pfizer concluded was due to maternal exposure to the vaccine.

Pfizer sent the pregnancy and lactation report detailing the vaccine’s effects on women and babies to the FDA on April 20, 2021. Two days later, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky gave a White House press conference, during which she told women there was no bad time to get a COVID-19 shot — before, during or after pregnancy.

‘What’s the point of legacy media if they won’t cover the story?’

In a Google search for “The Pfizer Papers,” the first unsponsored search result is a Pfizer webpage titled Fighting Harmful Effects of Covid Vaccine Misinformation, followed by a Lancet article on COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and effectiveness.

Wolf said she’s been fighting this type of censorship since she was first deplatformed.

“As a journalist, what is so devastatingly upsetting to me is that this is the biggest story of the 21st century, and The New York Times and The Washington Post have done nothing about it,” even though Wolf publicly offered to share her materials with them.

“The only coverage has been from alternative media, which is just heartbreaking,” she said. “What’s the point of legacy media if they won’t cover the story?”

Wolf said that because the reports in “The Pfizer Papers” are summaries of Pfizer data that link to primary source documents, they can’t be dismissed. They’re not interpretive, she said. They are not scientists’ and doctors’ opinions.

● ‘These scientists and doctors have done a service to humanity’

Wolf said in the midst of this “depressing overview of a horrible crime,” “The Pfizer Papers” also offered some hope for the vaccine-injured.

In many cases, the expert analysis provided a detailed explanation of how the vaccine caused the damage. Understanding how the damage occurred, said Wolf, “helps us to begin to understand how to treat this kind of damage.”

Inflammatory conditions can be mitigated through changing diet and other practices, she said. For all of the people facing blood clotting and other blood issues, there are also ways to support healthy blood flow.

These may be examples, she said, of “very crude initial responses to a very sophisticated assault on the human body. But to me, they’re very hopeful because people are desperate and they feel like ticking time bombs.”

She added:

“These scientists and doctors have done such a service to humanity because they’ve really deeply analyzed how this bioweapon so delicately hurt every single system of the human body.

“And by truly understanding that, you see how to begin to — I don’t want to say unwind or undo the damage. I don’t know if that’s possible —but how to help the body to support its own healing.”

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/naomi-wolf-the-pfizer-papers-book

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00:00:06
đŸ‡ș🇾 SEC Chair Paul Atkins says crypto market structure legislation is about to pass in Congress.

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00:00:24
🚹 Silver Just Became a U.S. National Security Asset 🚹

Silver has officially been added to the U.S. Geological Survey Critical Minerals List.

That one move changes everything.

In this video, my cousin Ai Asian Guy breaks down what this classification really means, legally, strategically, and historically.

‱ Why silver is no longer just a commodity

‱ How this activates government control over supply chains

‱ Why this signals the start of a supply lockdown, not a price spike

‱ How paper silver is quietly separating from physical reality

‱ Why availability is becoming the real market signal

This isn’t hype.

It’s a documented policy shift that happens before rationing.

The market hasn’t reacted yet.
But the system already has.
This rally you are witnessing is just beginning.

We have just entered into the Supercycle.

Let me remind you that both Silver and Copper were recently added last month to USGS Critical Minerals List.

When the U.S. government labels a metal critical, it’s admitting:

“These metals are essential to national security, we...

00:11:04
👉 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
When will the first PYTH buybacks occur?

The program launched this month, with the first purchases expected to occur within the 👉 current monthly cycle as announced.

Found this analysis of Pyth Network’s groundbreaking PYTH buybacks program helpful? Share this article with fellow crypto enthusiasts on Twitter, LinkedIn, or your favorite social platform to spread awareness about this innovative approach to token economics!

https://bitcoinworld.co.in/pyth-network-pyth-buybacks-program/

🚹 Gold & silver print all-time highs as DXY dives to 100.2; traders peg 100k+ Bitcoin follow-through by Q1-2026 🚹

Spot gold touched 2,178/oz and silver 27.94/oz in Asian trade 23 Dec 2024, both record nominal peaks, while the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) slumped to 100.2 on real-yield collapse. BeInCrypto markets desk notes the same macro setup that fueled 2020-21 Bitcoin mania is re-emerging, projecting BTC > 100k by Q1-2026 if the DXY downtrend holds.

🔑Key points

đŸ”č Dollar driver: 10-yr TIPS yield plunged to 1.36 % (-42 bps MoM) after Fed dot-plot showed 75 bps cuts penciled for 2025; DXY closed 2023 at 101.3, now -1.1 % YoY.

đŸ”č Gold-silver ratio: Collapsed from 92 to 78 in eight weeks—fastest narrowing since 2010—signaling reflation momentum that historically correlates with BTC risk-on legs.

đŸ”č Fed balance-sheet: Quietly expanding again via BTFP roll-offs replaced by fresh repos; liquidity proxy (FRRP+TGA) up 140 bn since 1 Nov, mirroring 2020 QE rhythm.

đŸ”č Bitcoin correlation: 60-day BTC vs DXY ...

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🚹ALERT: NEW WINDOWS CRYPTO MALWARE

Kaspersky has identified "Stealka", a new Windows infostealer targeting crypto wallets and passwords, spreading via fake software on GitHub and SourceForge.

A newly discovered Windows infostealer malware named Stealka has been identified by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, posing a significant threat to cryptocurrency users by targeting digital wallets, browser credentials, and sensitive system data.

The malware is being distributed through deceptive repositories on trusted platforms like GitHub and SourceForge, often disguised as pirated software, game mods, or cracked applications, including for popular titles like Roblox and tools such as Microsoft Visio.

As of December 24, 2025, the campaign is actively spreading, with attackers using sophisticated techniques—including AI-generated fake websites—to mimic legitimate software distribution pages and evade detection.

Stealka is designed to silently harvest data from over 100 Chromium- and Gecko-based ...

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Stellar CEO Reveals Where Real Opportunity Lies in Crypto Market: Details

In a recent tweet, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) CEO and Executive Director Denelle Dixon defines what "real opportunity" is in blockchain as a new financial future beckons.

The SDF CEO was reacting to a recent Bloomberg report on Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BNY), Nasdaq, S&P Global and iCapital participation in a new $50 million investment round by Digital Asset Holdings. This comes as some of Wall Street’s biggest names embrace the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies to handle traditional assets.

Reacting to this development, Stellar Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon stated that every blockchain investment is a bet on a different financial future. Dixon added that seeing banks explore blockchain technology validates what has been known over the years.

Real opportunity defined

While Wall Street’s biggest names betting on blockchain might be one of the most significant adoption milestones in the digital asset market, Dixon defines what real opportunity is and what it is not.

According to the SDF executive director, real opportunity is not replicating old systems on new rails but rather building open networks that fundamentally expand global finance participation.

"But the real opportunity isn’t replicating old systems on new rails—it’s building open networks that fundamentally expand who gets to participate in global finance. That’s the opportunity," Dixon tweeted.

At the Meridian 2025 event, Stellar outlined its long-term privacy strategy, committing to investing in critical privacy infrastructure and building foundational cryptographic capabilities.

Stellar eyes privacy upgrade

A new protocol upgrade is on the horizon for the Stellar network: X-Ray, which lays the groundwork for developers to build privacy applications on Stellar using zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography.

The protocol timeline testnet vote is anticipated for Jan. 7, 2026, while the mainnet vote is expected for Jan. 22, 2026.

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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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