Original Title: “Coinbase Acquires Former Polymarket Team, Dives Deep into Prediction Market Waters”
Original Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News
On December 22nd, Coinbase announced it had reached an agreement to acquire The Clearing Company, with the transaction expected to be completed in January. The Clearing Company team will join Coinbase to assist in expanding its product offerings. A spokesperson declined to disclose the transaction amount, describing it as “immaterial,” and confirmed the deal includes a combination of cash and Coinbase stock.
Although the specific financial terms of this acquisition have not been disclosed, it signifies Coinbase’s shift from simple distribution partnerships to deep integration of technology and talent in the growing prediction market sector.
Just one week before this deal was announced, Coinbase had launched a partnership with the CFTC-regulated prediction platform Kalshi, allowing its users to access Kalshi’s markets through the Coinbase interface. This acquisition of The Clearing Company is viewed by the market as a further step by Coinbase to acquire underlying technology stacks and strengthen its internal product development capabilities.
The “Hybrid DNA” of Polymarket and Kalshi
In August 2025, The Clearing Company completed a $15 million seed funding round led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Haun Ventures, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Compound, Rubik, Earl Grey, Cursor Capital, and Asylum. The company has not yet announced a platform launch timeline but emphasizes a focus on designing products that balance simplicity and compliance.
Although an early-stage startup, its team composition offers significant background advantages in the prediction market space.
According to its official website, The Clearing Company’s core team consists of several former executives and technical leads from Polymarket and Kalshi. The company’s founder and CEO, Toni Gemayel, is a seasoned operator in the prediction market field. His resume shows he previously held growth roles at both Polymarket and Kalshi. Additionally, he has a background working at the design unicorn Figma.
Furthermore, The Clearing Company’s core engineering team is primarily composed of early employees from Polymarket, while also incorporating some operations personnel from Kalshi.
· Liam Kovatch (Engineering): Former Head of Engineering at Polymarket;
· Niraek Jain-Sharma (Product/Markets): Formerly Head of Markets at Polymarket;
· Sam Schwartz: Former Chief Compliance Officer at Kalshi;
· Nick Beattie and Daniel Ramirez: These two engineers also hail from the Polymarket team and have experience in development at Rainbow and Avara.
A Coinbase spokesperson told The Block that the startup has about 10 employees, and nearly the entire team will join Coinbase as part of the deal.
Relatively speaking, although The Clearing Company is a later entrant, its initial capital backing far exceeds that of Polymarket and Kalshi in their early days. Comparing the seed funding data of the three companies clearly shows the leap in valuation systems within the prediction market track over the past five years.
The Clearing Company completed a $15 million seed funding round led by Union Square Ventures even before its product launch. This amount is nearly four times that of Polymarket’s seed round back in the day. This indicates that even before Coinbase’s acquisition, the primary market had already placed high expectations on this hybrid-gene team.
Coinbase Launches Stock Trading and Prediction Market Services
At its System Update launch event on December 18th, Coinbase announced a significant expansion of the asset classes tradable on its platform, including stock trading, prediction markets, new cryptocurrencies, and perpetual futures, among other new services, aiming to solidify its market position as an “all-in-one trading platform.”
Coinbase will initially launch trading services for hundreds of stocks based on market capitalization and trading volume, with plans to add thousands of stocks and ETFs in the coming months. Users can enjoy commission-free trading without the limitations of traditional market hours, available 24 hours a day, five days a week. Additionally, Coinbase has partnered with the $11 billion prediction market provider Kalshi, enabling users to trade on the outcomes of real-world events such as elections, sports, collectibles, and economic indicators.
Simultaneously, Coinbase also launched the AI-driven wealth management tool Coinbase Advisor and the Coinbase Business service for startups, further expanding its business scope. Company executives stated that these new features will be supported by the Coinbase Tokenize platform, an end-to-end institutional-grade platform designed for tokenizing real-world assets.
Recently, Coinbase, Kalshi, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Underdog jointly formed the Coalition for Prediction Markets. This national organization is dedicated to maintaining a safe, transparent, and federally regulated access environment for prediction markets.
Coinbase is gradually moving away from its label as a mere cryptocurrency exchange. With Robinhood and Interactive Brokers venturing into prediction markets, Coinbase must defend its territory. Having a native prediction product will complete its product matrix of spot, futures, and prediction markets, allowing users to perform a full suite of operations from buying Bitcoin to hedging macroeconomic risks within a single account.
The Next Phase of Competition in Prediction Markets
The acquisition of The Clearing Company is Coinbase’s tenth announced acquisition in 2025. Earlier completed deals this year include Roam, Spindl, Iron Fish, Deribit, Opyn Markets, Liquifi, Sensible, Echo, and Vector.fun.
From a distribution partnership integrating Kalshi to acquiring The Clearing Company’s team and technology, Coinbase’s path in the prediction market has become clear. First, validate demand and product fit through partnerships, then internalize key capabilities through mergers and acquisitions, ultimately forming a scalable, long-term business line.
Competition in prediction markets is shifting from who launches first to who can operate sustainably and compliantly in the long run. By bringing people and technology into its ecosystem, Coinbase is clearly positioning itself early for the next phase of competition centered on licensing and institutionalization.
