Coinbase announced the acquisition of the on-chain prediction market The Clearing Company, launched by the former Polymarket team.

Written by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

On December 22, Coinbase announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire The Clearing Company, with the deal expected to close in January. The Clearing Company team will join Coinbase to help expand its products. A spokesperson declined to disclose the transaction amount, stating it was 'insignificant,' and confirmed that the deal includes a combination of cash and Coinbase stock.

Although the specific financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, it marks a shift for Coinbase in the increasingly growing prediction market sector, moving from simple distribution partnerships to deep integration of technology and talent.

Just a week before the announcement of this deal, Coinbase had just launched a partnership with the CFTC-regulated prediction platform Kalshi, allowing its users to access Kalshi's market through the Coinbase interface. The acquisition of The Clearing Company is seen by the market as Coinbase's further move to seek ownership of the underlying technology stack and strengthen its internal product development capabilities.

The 'hybrid genes' of Polymarket and Kalshi

In August 2025, The Clearing Company completed a $15 million seed round financing, 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 timeline for the platform's launch but emphasized that it will focus on designing products that balance simplicity and compliance.

Although this is an early-stage startup, its team composition has a significant background advantage in the prediction market field.

According to official website information, The Clearing Company's core team consists of several former executives and technical backbones from Polymarket and Kalshi, with founder and CEO Toni Gemayel being a veteran operator in the prediction market field. His resume shows that he has served as the head of growth at both Polymarket and Kalshi. Additionally, he has a background working on the design of the unicorn Figma.

In addition, 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): Former Market Lead at Polymarket;

  • Sam Schwartz: Former Chief Compliance Officer at Kalshi;

  • Nick Beattie and Daniel Ramirez: These two engineers also come from the Polymarket team and have experience in development at Raibow and Avara.

A Coinbase spokesperson told The Block that the startup has about 10 employees, and nearly all team members will join Coinbase as part of the acquisition.

Relatively speaking, although The Clearing Company is a latecomer, its starting capital is far greater than that of Polymarket and Kalshi back in the day. A comparison of the seed round financing data of the three companies clearly shows the leap in the valuation system of the prediction market track over the past five years.

The Clearing Company completed a $15 million seed round financing led by Union Square Ventures even before its product was launched. 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 extremely high expectations on this hybrid gene team.

Coinbase launches stock trading and prediction market services

Coinbase announced a significant expansion of its platform's trading asset range during the System Update on December 18, including stock trading, prediction markets, new cryptocurrencies, and perpetual futures among several new services, aiming to solidify its market positioning as an 'all-in-one exchange.'

Coinbase will initially launch hundreds of stock trading services based on market capitalization and trading volume, and plans to add thousands of stocks and ETFs in the coming months. Users can enjoy zero-commission trading, without being constrained by traditional market hours, available five days a week, 24 hours a day. Furthermore, Coinbase has partnered with the $11 billion prediction market provider Kalshi, allowing users to trade on the outcomes of real-world events such as elections, sports, collectibles, and economic indicators.

At the same time, Coinbase also launched the AI-driven wealth management tool Coinbase Advisor and the Coinbase Business service aimed at startups, further expanding its business scope. Company executives stated that these new features will be supported by the Coinbase Tokenize platform, which is designed as an end-to-end institutional-grade platform for tokenizing physical assets.

Recently, Coinbase, Kalshi, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Underdog jointly established the Coalition for Prediction Markets. This national organization is committed to maintaining a safe, transparent, and federally regulated entry environment for prediction markets.

Coinbase is gradually downplaying its label as a pure cryptocurrency exchange. As Robinhood and Interactive Brokers venture into the prediction market, Coinbase must defend its territory. Having a native prediction product will enhance its product matrix of spot, futures, and prediction markets, allowing users to complete a full range of operations from purchasing Bitcoin to hedging macroeconomic risks within a single account.

The next phase of competition in the prediction market

The acquisition of The Clearing Company is the tenth acquisition announced by Coinbase in 2025. Earlier transactions completed this year include Roam, Spindl, Iron Fish, Deribit, Opyn Markets, Liquifi, Sensible, Echo, and Vector.fun.

From the distribution partnership with Kalshi to acquiring The Clearing Company's team and technology, Coinbase's path in the prediction market has become clear. First, it will validate demand and product form through partnerships, and then through acquisitions, internalize key capabilities, ultimately forming a scalable long-term business line.

The competition in the prediction market is shifting from who launches first to who can run in compliance for the long term. Coinbase's choice to integrate people and technology into its system is clearly a move to secure a position for the next phase of licensing and institutional competition.