The FBI just raided this 26-year-old's apartment.
His crime? Building a website predicting Trump's win better than every poll in the world.
They tried to shut him down. Instead, they made him a legend.
Here's why it made him more unstoppable than ever:🧵
Meet Shayne Coplan, founder & CEO of @Polymarket
Yesterday, FBI agents stormed his home, seizing his phone and electronics
His crime? Building a website where people bet on future events
The raid might be a blessing in disguise for him
Here's why:
Read the room - People are sick of big-govt overstepping
Polymarket dominated election predictions
Now, it's become a bigger pop culture rebel after this raid publicity
Shayne has raised $70M from Vitalik & Thiel's VC firm, Founders Fund
He's not going anywhere ⤵️
Prediction markets aren't just gambling sites
They're the most accurate forecasting tools ever created
How accurate?
• Better than polls
• Better than expert predictions
• Better than government forecasts
The numbers are staggering...
These markets predicted:
• 90% of election outcomes
• Major scientific breakthroughs
• Economic crashes
• Global events
Traditional forecasting tools? They got half of these wrong
But here's where it gets interesting:
The U.S. Gov uses prediction markets themselves
- DARPA spent millions studying them
- The CIA uses them to forecast global events
Yet they're raiding innovators for building the same thing
The truth? Prediction markets are unstoppable...
Why? Because they're just math and code
You can't raid an equation. You can't arrest an algorithm
You can't shut down decentralized networks
Polymarket was brilliantly designed as a layer 2 blockchain on #Ethereum
The market makers learned from crypto:
• No central servers
• No company headquarters
• No single point of failure
Just pure information flow
This isn't about gambling — it's about the future of forecasting
Want to shut down a prediction market? Here's what happens:
They're like a hydra: Cut off one head, two more appear
Prediction markets reveal uncomfortable truths:
• About elections
• About economics
• About human behavior
A crystal ball algorithm clearly feels threatening to people in power
That's why they're feared
That's why they're fought
That's why they'll win
And Shayne's raid? Will he be arrested? What's next?
His phone is gone. Whatever
If he's arrested, Trump will pardon him with Ross Ulbricht
But his code lives on. Dozens of others are building alongside him too
The future is already here. It just isn't evenly distributed yet
And no raid can stop that. So, what happens next?
The next wave of prediction markets will be:
• Fully decentralized
• Run by DAOs
• Immune to raids
Think crypto in 2009.
Think torrents in 2001.
Think the internet in 1995.
The cat's out of the bag:
Every time authorities shut one down, the code gets:
• More resilient
• More distributed
• More unstoppable
Just like they couldn't stop BitTorrent...
Just like they couldn't stop Bitcoin...
They won't stop this
The final irony?
The same agencies raiding prediction markets today will be using them tomorrow
Because when it comes to seeing the future, nothing beats the wisdom of mass populations
Remember this moment
Years from now, people will ask:
"Where were you when prediction markets went mainstream?"
Some will say: "I watched them get raided"
Others will say: "I helped build them"
Which side of history will you be on?
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this:
1. Follow me @eyezenhour for more thought-provoking content
2. Repost this thread if you found it insightful
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