- Authorities raided Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan’s home on Wednesday.
- They took his cellphone and other electronic devices.
- Crypto execs claimed — without substantiation — that the search was out of political retribution.
Crypto is crying foul after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan.
In a since-deleted retweet of a post that said the raid looked like “political retribution,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that the raid “will backfire” and that “they just made Polymarket even more powerful.”
However, in an apparent acknowledgement that there’s no public evidence that the FBI’s raid was an act of retribution from the Biden administration, Armstrong retracted his post.
“Deleted my prior tweet until all the facts are in,” he said, “but doesn’t look good.”
FBI raid
Early Wednesday morning, federal agents searched Coplan’s New York City apartment, according to the New York Post.
They took the CEO’s cellphone and other electronic devices. The raid was part of an investigation led by attorneys from the Southern District of New York, a branch of the Department of Justice, according to the New York Times and Bloomberg.
Authorities are investigating whether Polymarket, which hosts political betting markets, allowed US users to access the platform, according to Bloomberg. The platform previously reached a $1.4 million settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 to prevent US users from betting on the site.
Polymarket and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the Southern District declined to comment.
Trump-ward tilt
Polymarket hosts decentralised prediction markets that allow users to bet on the outcomes of political races, sports games, and other events.
The site achieved widespread acclaim as users flocked to the website to bet on the outcome of the US presidential election. Its presidential election odds were often featured in mainstream media reports.
While political polls said the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump was a tossup, Polymarket consistently leaned Trump-ward.
After Trump won the US election, the cryptorati cited the former president’s victory as a justification for the utility of the platform.
Politically motivated?
Coplan implied that it was his platform’s Trump-ward tilt that led to the FBI raid.
“It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents,” he wrote in a tweet following the raid.
Other crypto luminaries soon piggybacked off of the CEO’s implication that the federal government’s investigation was politically motivated.
“Obvious political retribution by outgoing admin,” Nic Carter, a partner at crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures, wrote on X.
“You simply couldn’t paint a more graphic political retribution picture,” echoed Mike Dudas, another crypto investor, on X.
Polymarket did not provide evidence to DL News that substantiated claims that the raid was politically motivated.
Update, November 14: Added in that the Southern District declined to comment.
Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email at bweiss@dlnews.com.