Polymarket Surpasses $2B Bet Volume

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Good Morning.

The market looks like it wants to break upwards, with Trump’s winning odd increasing even further to ~60%. Let’s hope that by the time you see this, the US market will have opened and we’re back at above $70,000. Hoozah!

Also, the new pod episode is up!

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Polymarket $2B Bet Volume 🚀 

• Founders Highlight: Vlad of Gunzilla 🔫 

• Deal Flow: Bridge Potential $1B Acq 💰️ 

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WHAT MATTERS

Polymarket Surpasses $2B Bet Volume

State of play: Polymarket's betting volume on the 2024 US presidential election, featuring Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, has crossed $2B, doubling from $1B in just 23 days.

• Trump holds $621M in bets with a 60.9% chance of winning, while Harris has $413M with 39.1% odds.

• The US election has fueled significant growth on the platform, driving October's volume to $1.14B, up 113.7% from September.

• Polymarket raised $45M in Series B funding earlier this year and is eyeing additional fundraising and token launch plans.

Why it Matters: Polymarket's $2B betting volume milestone shows the growing interest in decentralized prediction markets, especially around high-stakes events like the US presidential election.

What’s next: With just 19 days left until the election, shifts in political dynamics or candidate performance may significantly alter betting volumes and odds, making Polymarket a key platform to watch for real-time election insights.

For builders and investors: The key factor is to figure out what will sustain your project’s growth post an exponential surge; oftentimes, when not done right, these surges can lead to a death valley also.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Vlad Korolov of Gunzilla

Intro: Vlad Korolov is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gunzilla, an independent AAA game studio behind Off The Grid, and the developer of GUNZ blockchain.

• Vlad is also a partner and board member of GAMEGROOVE.

Previous background: Vlad began his career in digital banking, running the commercial department of a payment-processing company before co-founding Paymo.

• He launched a fintech startup, creating an IT system used by 40+ banks to streamline communication between banks and clients.

• After a decade of success in fintech, Vlad shifted to the video game industry, combining his tech expertise with his passion for gaming.

• He co-founded the popular matchmaking app PLINK

The big idea: Vlad and GUNZ strive to be one of the first player-friendly crypto-economies in a AAA game, aiming to empower players by granting them complete ownership over their in-game items in the form of NFTs.

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INSIGHTS

Radiant Capital $51M Exploit

State of play: Radiant Capital, an omnichain money market, has experienced a major $51M exploit, according to onchain data and security firm Ancilia.

• The attack began on Radiant's Arbitrum instance before spreading to its BNB Chain deployment.

• The hacker used a transferFrom exploit to move tokens from Radiant-controlled wallets.

• Over $32M in Arbitrum-based assets and $18M on BNB Chain are now in the attacker's possession.

• Its largest holdings are ETH derivatives wstETH and weETH.

• This marks Radiant’s second major security incident in 2024, following a flash loan attack earlier in the year that resulted in a $4.5M loss.

Security experts warn that the exploit may have been enabled by a compromised smart contract control system, possibly due to phishing or an insider attack leading to a private key leak.

• Ancilia and Fuzzland recommend Radiant users revoke all contract approvals immediately, as the attacker continues to move assets into a wallet currently holding a $51 million balance.

• The Radiant team is working with security teams to investigate and recover the funds.

• The Ethereum and Base deployments of Radiant remain unaffected by this exploit, but users are advised to exercise caution when interacting with any contracts.

DEAL FLOWS

Stripe in Talks to Acquire Bridge for $1B

Deal flows soared this week, we saw $390M+ in deals 💼 

Stripe is reportedly in advanced negotiations to acquire Bridge, a stablecoin-focused fintech firm backed by Sequoia, in a potential $1B deal.

• Although no final decision has been made, the acquisition would be Stripe’s largest to date.

• Bridge integrates stablecoins like USDC and USDT into traditional financial systems for cross-border payments.

• Stripe, which reintroduced crypto payments last week using Circle’s USDC, continues to expand its involvement in the crypto space.

Deal flows in the past week:

• Fission Labs, $1.6M Pre-Seed Round

• Surge, $1.8M Pre-Seed Round

• The Arena, $2M Pre-Seed Round

• Pell Network, $3M Pre-Seed Round

• Hermetica, $1.7M Seed Round

• Hyve, $1.85M Seed Round

• Blockcast, $2.85M Seed Round

• Drop, $4M Seed Round

• Vue Protocol, $6M Seed Round

• Opacity Network, $12M Seed Round

• zkPass, $12.5M Series A

• Azra Games, $42M Series A

• Bitnomial, $25M Series C

• Yellow Card, $33M Series C

• Blockstream, $210M Convertible Note Round

• Lombard, $1M Strategic Round

• Solv Protocol, $11M Strategic Round

• Flappy Bird, $2M Unknown Round

• Predicate, $7M Unknown Round

• Mento, $10M Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

• Ostium Labs launches mainnet.

• IBIT draws $1B+ inflow this week.

• Cardi B joins the crypto world with $WAP.

• MoonPay customers can use Venmo to buy crypto.

• CFTC says the court got it wrong in Kalshi’s decision.

• Italy plans a 62% spike in capital gains tax on Bitcoin.

• FBI arrests Alabama man behind SEC social media hack.

• Kraken launches a wrapped BTC alternative, called KBTC.

• Worldcoin launches mainnet blockchain following a rebrand.

• US SEC takes steps in its appeal against earlier Ripple ruling.

• Vitalik outlines the ambitious goal of 100K TPS for Ethereum.

• ETH staker revenue has dropped 30% since the March peak.

• SCB introduces a stablecoin service for international payments.

• Robinhood to expand futures trading with Bitcoin and Ethereum.

• EthOS introduces dGEN1 hardware devices for onchain interactions.

NOTEWORTHY READS

• a16z crypto’s read on the state of crypto report 2024.

• Blockworks’ read on the fallacy of daily active addresses.

• Kyle Samani’s read on investing in technical domains as someone who’s no technical.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.