There’s no shortage of bonkers details about Polymarket. The government alleges that both a special forces soldier and a longtime Google employee used the prediction market to amass small fortunes by insider trading; CEO Shayne Coplan had his apartment raided by FBI agents, who entered via battering ram; and one of its executives reportedly paid influencers through his personal PayPal account to hype up the company.
News
But one of the biggest oddities about Polymarket has remained somewhat overlooked: What’s going on with the Panama-based company it set up to comply with a settlement it made with the federal government? And why, as WIRED’s reporting suggests, do some employees of the Panamanian company appear to have worked from New York?
The prediction market with ties to Donald Trump Jr. has an unusually convoluted setup. In 2022, federal regulators said it was operating as an unlicensed derivatives exchange, kicked it out of the country, and barred it from serving US-based customers. Prior to the ban, Adventure One QSS, a corporate entity in Panama, was established, as first reported by Sportico. Adventure One QSS was based offshore so that it could take over operational responsibilities for Polymarket’s flagship platform. A d
Despite this structure, WIRED found that Adventure One QSS had staff working out of the US. Former Polymarket employees tell WIRED that some Adventure One QSS staffers have resided in New York, including some who worked from the company’s Manhattan-based headquarters.
Details
These employees did not travel to Panama, report to anyone in Panama, or interact with Panama-based colleagues—because, they say, there were no colleagues there. Instead, they say, the Adventure One QSS staff was spread out across a number of other countries, including the US.
The finer points of this structure are important. The 2022 settlement fined Blockratize—a corporate entity associated with Polymarket—$1.4 million and ordered it to “wind down” offering markets that violated the Commodity Exchange Act. The agreement also required the company to stop violating the CEA and other Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulations. Former CFTC employees see the location of Adventure One’s staff as relevant to the agreement. “We would have really liked to know that the
As Sportico reported, Adventure One QSS did initially name Panama residents on its incorporation papers in 2021, including Mario Ernesto García de Paredes, a lawyer referred to as the company’s “resident agent.” A woman named Diana Munoz was listed as the company president for two months before being replaced by Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, who is based out of New York. Another man who appears to be based in Panama, Omar Camargo, was listed as secretary. García de Paredes did not respond to WIR
Analysis
WIRED’s reporting aligns with previous coverage from NPR, which found that the company’s headquarters in a skyscraper in Panama City was empty and that the company did not have Panama-based staff. In contrast, Adventure One QSS workers in the United States have allegedly been productive and present. One former Polymarket staffer said that the workers in New York who “touched code,” set up event contracts, or otherwise dealt with the offshore platform were all technically working for Adventure On
Blockratize and Adventure One QSS are not completely intertwined; New York Stock Exchange parent company Intercontinental Exchange has announced it would invest up to $2 billion into Polymarket, but it’s actually invested only in Blockratize and not Adventure One QSS, for example. And Adventure One QSS staffers in the US did not have permanent desks in the New York office. A former employees described a workplace in which Adventure One team members were expected to perform specific tasks related
It’s not unusual for businesses to incorporate in Panama, which has an appealing tax system for multinationals, strong privacy laws, and easy registration requirements. In this instance, though, Polymarket was specifically spurred by its 2022 settlement agreement with the CFTC.
Stay informed with the latest news on Wararka.so — your trusted source for Somalia and world news.
