Polymarket Hires Coinbase's Failed Social-Coin Architect

Polymarket has hired Jacob Horne, the co-founder of Zora, the app behind Coinbase’s failed creator-coin experiment, to rebuild its onchain trading product. Chief executive Shayne Coplan announced the move Thursday.

Horne left Zora eight days ago after more than six years running it. His new job sets him against Kalshi, the exchange that now powers Coinbase’s own prediction markets across the United States.

What Coplan Asked Horne to Fix Polymarket runs two venues: Traders outside the US use a market that settles on the Polygon blockchain, a corner of the industry known as Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

Americans use a separate exchange licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Coplan said Horne will work with him directly on product, and pointed at the crypto side of that split.