Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
- Crypto majors mostly flat into FOMC, Bitcoin leads +1% to $116,300
- Binance in talks with US DOJ to end its compliance monitor
- Bank of America says 67% of fund managers hold 0 crypto
- Trump suing NY Times for $15M saying they hurt the TRUMP meme
- Tether co-founder launches STBL, token soars to $1.7B fdv in debut
🔮 Polymarket Token Incoming?
The world’s biggest prediction market is flirting with a token.
And it’s doing it while eyeing a stratospheric new valuation, rolling out earnings markets with Stocktwits, and prepping a regulated U.S. return.
📌 What Happened
Polymarket’s recent SEC filings hinted at “other warrants” which typically indicate a token.
This has led to broad speculation of a Polymarket token in the works.
And the token speculation comes just days after multiple outlets reported that Polymarket has raised a fresh round that could value the company as high as $9B–$10B.
A massive jump from the ~$1B valuation discussed in June.
That’s a lot of big money news, coming along with major fundamental progress:
- Regulated U.S. comeback: After acquiring CFTC-licensed QCEX and receiving staff relief, CEO Shayne Coplan says the platform has the “green light” to go live in the U.S.
- New product + distribution: Polymarket launched public-company earnings prediction markets and became the official prediction-markets partner of Stocktwits, bringing live probabilities to Stocktwits’ 10M+ users
- Volume check: Volumes are coming in around ~$250M/week and consistently at the $1B/month mark
The $10B raise makes a bit more sense with that backdrop.
🗣️ What They’re Saying
“Polymarket has been given the green light to go live in the USA by the @CFTC. Credit to the Commission and Staff for their impressive work.” – Shayne Coplan, CEO, on X (Sep 3)
“Prediction markets transform uncertainty into clarity by turning big questions-like earnings-into simple, tradable outcomes with transparent pricing.” – Matthew Modabber, CMO, Polymarket, on the Stocktwits partnership.
“Polymarket is the largest prediction market in the world, and the U.S. needs access to this important platform.” – Donald Trump Jr., as Polymarket added him to its advisory board following 1789 Capital’s investment.
🧠 Why It Matters
A token would formalize community upside.
If a Polymarket token launches, it turns users into owners, likely deepens liquidity across markets, and enables new incentive design (e.g., fee shares, staking for dispute resolution, or market-maker rewards).
Timing-wise, it makes sense.
They have more momentum than ever with the combination of regulatory approval, new product verticals (earnings markets), sports markets catching fire (see Kalshi’s latest volume surge) and a general explosion in prediction market interest.
And just the hint of a token is enough to steal market share and attention from their rival Kalshi (which has flipped Polymarket in volume as of late).
All being equal, users will trade on the apps that have the best lines, market and/or best UX.
With token incentives in the mix, the decision of which app to use has a heavily weighted new factor.
So expect Polymarket volumes and attention to boom here in the near future.
As for its token, it’s tough to value. Polymarket is a true unicorn. And without them taking a fee, there is no revenue model to use.
It wouldn’t be crazy at all to think a Polymarket token would fetch $5B-$10B upon its debut.
Maybe we’ll find out this year…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes
A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors are mixed ahead of FOMC, BTC leads; BTC 1% at $116,300, ETH even at $4,500, XRP -1% at $3.01, SOL -1% at $234
- MYX (+56%), IP (+10%) and HYPE (+5%) led top movers
- The Bitcoin ETFs saw another $292.3M in net inflows, continue 7-day inflow streak
- Bank of America reported that 67% of fund managers hold no crypto and only 8% have started structural crypto investments
- Binance is in talks with the U.S. DOJ about ending its compliance monitor, per Bloomberg
- Trump is suing the New York Times for $15B, claiming that reporting hurt his TRUMP meme coin
- The Ethereum exit queue has swollen to ~2.5M ETH with waits >46 days, the longest yet
- Santander’s Openbank turned on crypto trading in Germany under MiCA, with Spain up next
- UBS, Sygnum and PostFinance pilot what they call the first interbank settlement using deposit tokens on a public chain
- Galaxy Digital plans a tokenized money-market fund spanning Ethereum, Solana and Stellar
- The UK is expected to announce tighter crypto-oversight coordination with the U.S., according to the Financial Times
- Over $3,000,000,000 in USDT was minted onchain in the past 4 days
In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs
- Forward Industries (FORD) announced a $4B ATM program to buy more SOL after just buying $1.6B in SOL
- SharpLink (SBET) bought just 900 ETH in the past week though it did buy 1M shares back
- Bitwise filed for an Avalanche ETF as XRP and Dogecoin ETFs near launch
In Memes
- Memecoin leaders are mostly flat; DOGE even, Shiba even, PEPE +1%, PENGU +1%, BONK +2%, TRUMP -1%, SPX +1%, and FARTCOIN +1%
- KIND (+33%) and 67 (+350%) lead notable onchain movers
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
- Tether co-founder launched STBL as a new stablecoin protocol focused on yield, touted as “stablecoins 2.0”
- Pump.fun bonding curves had their highest day of volume in 7 months
- Circle bought HYPE and signaled it may run a Hyperliquid validator alongside new USDC tooling on HyperEVM
- LimeWire bought the Fyre Festival brand and hinted at token and NFT hooks for a rebooted event
- OpenSea clarified that its “final pre-TGE phase” would have multiple seasons
🤖 AI x Crypto
Section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:
- Overall market cap +1% at $13.75B, leaders were mixed
- FARTCOIN (+1%), VIRTUAL (-1%), TIBBIR (+12%), aixbt (even) & ai16z (+1%)
- SNAI (+23%), BIOS (+21%) and IRIS (+18%) led top movers
- Virtuals announced it’s more than software, plans to fuel “the next wave of robotic agents”
- Google debuted an open-source AI payments protocol with stablecoin support, with input from Coinbase and Salesforce
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
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