In 2013, a 14-year-old high school student from New York sent an email to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This person later became the founder of the billion dollar prediction market PolyMarket. In the email, there was no inquiry for investment advice or entrepreneurial guidance, but a serious inquiry: Is it legal to design a stock exchange based on an electronic trading network? The person who wrote the letter was Shayne Coplan, who was just an ordinary high school student at the time. He has read economist Robin Hanson's paper on whether the market can help society make decisions and wrote a letter to Hanson expressing his desire to do so. The other party didn't take it seriously. Until 2020, when COVID-19 broke out and New York was closed down, Coplan, 21, was running out of money. He was still thinking that everyone was predicting "when to unseal" and "whether the election will be rewritten", but there was no place for these judgments to form a price. So he wrote code in his' makeshift bathroom office 'in the bathroom of the Lower East Side apartment. Polymarket was launched in June 2020 and completed a $4 million seed round in October; In the same year's election, the platform's trading volume exceeded $8 million, and the market price of Biden's victory gave direction several hours earlier than the final result. Vitalik Buterin publicly praised the product experience. In January 2022, the CFTC imposed a penalty, stating that Polymarket provided an unregistered event contract market. Polymarket paid a fine of $1.4 million and stopped providing some markets to American users, shifting operations overseas. He accepted the punishment and hired the former CFTC chairman as an advisor to begin constructing a compliance narrative. But he knows that compliance narrative is not a license. In the next two years, he will continue to refine the product, making it load faster, making the mobile app smoother, and allowing people who have never touched cryptocurrency to place orders on it. No applause, no major financing, just waiting for the next news cycle. In June 2023, the OceanGate Titan submersible went missing and was continuously reported by global media. Polymarket immediately launched the market, and the official account replied under a viral tweet: "By Friday, there is still a 15% chance that they will be found The transaction amount exceeded 2 million US dollars, and criticism followed, saying that it was a gamble on human life. Coplan did not apologize, did not withdraw from the market, and did not provide any explanation. In 2024, the US presidential election once again became a global focus. The platform's trading volume has grown rapidly, and Polymarket has become an important tool for many people to observe political trends and predict whether the market will truly enter mainstream discussions. Coplan also began to reinforce his core belief: Polymarket is not a casino, but an information market. It's not about telling people what to believe, but about letting everyone express their judgment with funds. This year, Polymarket received significant capital support, with investors such as Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Vitalik Buterin entering, and the platform's valuation continued to rise. But success also brings new problems. During the 2024 election, the Trump Whale incident sparked controversy. A large trader invested tens of millions of dollars in betting on Trump's victory, sparking discussions on market manipulation. Eight days after the election, the FBI entered Coplan's residence and confiscated his electronic devices. A few hours later, he logged onto X with his new phone and posted, 'New phone, who dis?'. In July 2025, DOJ and CFTC concluded their investigation without any charges. In the same month, Polymarket acquired QCEX, gaining entry into the regulatory framework in the United States. In September, the CFTC officially released it. Coplan thanks regulatory agencies for their 'excellent work' on X. In 2026, Polymarket continues to expand from a platform that allows users to bet on the future to a platform that provides future probability data. CBS's "60 Minutes" asked him if he had anticipated all of this, and he said, "I did this to get here