Coplan Shane (Shayne Coplan)

Coplan Shane (Shayne Coplan)

Biography

2025: Becoming the youngest dollar billionaire in history

In early October 2027, it became known that the 27-year-old founder of the cryptocurrency platform Polymarket Shane Coplan (Shayne Coplan) became the youngest dollar billionaire in history who independently earned his fortune. This happened after the NYSE exchange invested $2 billion in the project, which allowed Polymarket to receive a market valuation of $9 billion.

Coplan launched Polymarket in 2020 - during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a decentralized prediction markets platform that allows users through cryptocurrency to bet on the outcome of world events. As Coplan said, he founded Polymarket in order to become a "reliable source of information," in particular, to combat "misinformation around the pandemic."

Forbes notes that at the beginning of 2025, the market value of Polymarket was about $1.2 billion. However, after raising funds from the NYSE, the platform's capitalization jumped sharply. As a result, Coplan, who owns about an 11 percent stake in the project, has become a dollar billionaire. At the same time, the Polymarket platform has become the fastest growing startup in the field of cryptocurrencies.

This is the fastest and most significant value growth we've ever seen in cryptocurrencies, "says Rob Hadick, general partner at venture capital firm Dragonfly, which invested in Polymarket.

Coplan also announced two earlier funding rounds, during which a total of $205 million was raised. Polymarket's investors include Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Ethereumfounder Vitalik Buterin, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Figma co-founder Dylan Field, Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, American billionaire Glenn Dubin and others.^[1]

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