The world's youngest self-made billionaire: how Shane Coplan turned a bathroom into a $9 billion startup

Shane Coplan made history as the youngest self-made billionaire. This comes after the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), invested $2 billion in its Polymarket platform, where users place bets on the outcome of events. The company was valued at $9 billion, and Coplan's roughly 11% stake made him the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. Just a few years ago, this same man was taking inventory of his belongings, preparing to sell them off to pay rent on his Manhattan apartment.

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Coplan was born and raised in New York City. As a teenager, he became interested in technology and began experimenting with cryptocurrency mining. In 2014, when he was just 16 years old, he took part in the pre-sale of Ethereum tokens, buying them for 30 cents apiece. Today this cryptocurrency is trading above $4,000.

After enrolling at New York University, Coplan soon realized that he was more interested in the world of cryptocurrencies and dropped out of school to immerse himself in the study of blockchain and decentralized technologies.

In 2019, having become disillusioned with “fly-by-night” cryptocurrency projects, Coplan came across economist Robin Hanson’s work on prediction markets. He argued that such markets could help society better determine the likely outcomes of events, from political elections to scientific discoveries.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in early 2020, Coplan saw the perfect moment. Millions of people were sitting at home in isolation - why not give them the opportunity to bet on real events? In March 2020, he set up a makeshift office in his bathroom and began creating Polymarket. The platform was launched in June of the same year.

Struggle

The path to success turned out to be thorny. Polymarket operated on the principle of “first we launch, then we ask for permission,” and this constantly caused conflicts with American regulators.

In January 2022, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined the company $1.4 million for unregistered exchange activities and banned it from serving US users. Polymarket agreed to the terms without admitting or denying guilt.

But regulators suspected that the platform continued to serve American users in circumvention of the ban. The climax came after the 2024 presidential elections in the United States. Polymarket users bet more than $3 billion on the outcome of the vote, and the platform has become one of the main sources of forecasts. A week after Trump's victory, FBI agents raided Coplan's apartment and seized electronic devices.

Triumph

2025 was a turning point. In July, the government abruptly stopped all investigations into Polymarket. That same month, the company bought the CFTC-licensed exchange QCEX for $112 million, allowing it to legally resume operations in the United States.

And in August, Donald Trump Jr., whose venture capital company 1789 Capital became an investor in the platform, joined Polymarket’s advisory board. By the time ICE arrived in October, the project had raised at least $255 million from an impressive list of investors, including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, and even appeared in an episode of the cult TV series South Park.

The deal with ICE is the final word for now. The NYSE owner received 20% of the company for a $2 billion investment and raised Polymarket's valuation to $9 billion from $1.2 billion at the beginning of the year.