NOTE: Okay, before we get into the meat of this story, I need to disclose the fact that I am almost laughably conflicted here in several different ways, and to a degree that, at first, made me not want to publish this piece. Ultimately, I felt the details of the story were too important to ignore, and decided to move forward as transparently as possible. That means sharing my conflicts, explaining why I chose to move forward despite them, and letting you, the reader, judge this all as you see fit.

First, the conflicts: As anyone who reads the Pirate Wires Daily or listens to our pod surely knows, Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket, a major subject of this piece (they pay for a callout on the podcast and ads in our daily). 2) Founders Fund, where I work separately from Pirate Wires, is invested in Polymarket. 3) Keaton Inglis, a Kalshi employee and another subject of this piece, interviewed for a job at Pirate Wires just a handful of months ago. I never made him an offer, but he broke the process off himself, which is something I’d want to know if I were reading this piece. Finally 4) though I can’t imagine how this one really matters given the overall thrust of this story, it’s worth noting we worked with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour on a piece.

Clearly, and again, these are major conflicts. But receipts are receipts, and what follows is the beginning of a story more important, to my eye, than either Polymarket or Kalshi. Because we’re looking at two, incredibly well-funded companies employing a dueling pair of influencer marketing growth strategies, at least one of which — Kalshi’s — has turned several of those influencers, quietly, to framing Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan as a criminal online. What follows is the first, important look at what increasingly appears to be the future of businesses at war in a fragmented media ecosystem dominated by influencers. I’m one of them. Judge this accordingly.

-Solana

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Following a 6 AM raid at Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan’s SoHo residence on November 13, Kalshi — a Polymarket competitor — paid social media influencers to boost news of the raid and push a narrative that Coplan and Polymarket engaged in illegal activity, according to sources close to the matter and screenshots we viewed.

Other screenshots provided by sources appeared to show influencers who posted negative content about Coplan and Polymarket following the raid discussing the fact that they were in paid partnerships with Kalshi. One source we spoke to told us that just days after the raid, a third party associated with Kalshi offered him $3,500 to write a “hit piece” on Polymarket.

In one screenshot showing a group DM (below), employees of Kalshi asked former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown, who has 2.2 million X followers, to post a specific message about the raid.

“Yo AB are you down to QT this with something like ‘this n**a seem guilty,’” Keaton Inglis, a member of Kalshi’s growth team, asks Brown in the screenshot, appearing to refer to a post (archive link) by CJ Pearson that implies Coplan is corrupt. “Let’s hit it,” Inglis’ colleague Brendan Beckhardt, who’s Chief of Staff at Kalshi, adds.

On November 15, Brown quotetweeted (archive link) Pearson’s post with the caption “this nigga seem guilty…”

That same day, a third party associated with Kalshi offered Gateway Pundit journalist Elijah Schaffer, who has 772,000 X followers, $3,500 to write a “hit piece” that would push the narrative that Polymarket and Coplan were engaged in criminal activity, Schaffer told us over the phone. He declined the offer. We weren’t able to independently verify Schaffer’s claims.

Other screenshots we viewed appeared to show several social media influencers who pushed anti-Polymarket narratives in the days after the FBI raid on Coplan’s apartment discussing their paid partnerships with Kalshi.

One screenshot appears to show a representative of the right-leaning meme account Clown World, which has 2.8 million followers, discussing its paid partnership with Kalshi. A day after the raid, on November 14, the account posted (archive link) “SBF LOOK ALIKE RAIDED BY FBI IN ILLEGAL BETTING SCHEME. If only there were signs 🤣,” referring to Coplan. Clown World has posted other Kalshi-related content several times (archive link) since the election.

Another screenshot appears to show Arynne Wexler, a Miami-based influencer with over 67,000 X followers, discussing her “deal” with Kalshi in late October. On November 14, Wexler posted a video (archive link) about the raid, citing the facts that trading on Polymarket is illegal in the US — while “Kalshi [has a license] to operate in the US” — and encouraging her followers to “check the platforms that you’re using and make sure they are legally allowed to operate in the US.” Like Clown World, Wexler has also posted (archive link) other Kalshi-related content in the run up to the election.

If true, the allegations would reveal a cutthroat behind-the-scenes struggle for dominance over US-based prediction markets between the two companies, with Kalshi paying large social media accounts to instigate a covert public relations campaign on its behalf without clearly disclosing the obvious inherent conflicts of interest.

According to Bloomberg reporting, the raid on Coplan’s apartment was related to a DoJ investigation. Polymarket was prohibited from accepting trades from US users in a 2022 settlement with the CFTC in which the company paid a $1.4 million fine after it launched without first getting the agency’s approval to become a designated contract market (DCM). Polymarket currently geoblocks US visitors who try to create accounts; it’s unclear if the DoJ investigation concerns users bypassing the geogate, or something else.

Kalshi launched its platform in 2021 with a variety of non-political event contracts after having received the CFTC’s approval to do so (i.e. become a DCM) in 2020. In 2023, the CFTC denied Kalshi’s application to allow users to trade congressional control contracts. The company sued the agency over the decision, and in September 2024, a District Court ruled in Kalshi’s favor. In October, a Circuit Court denied the CFTC’s emergency stay on the ruling, effectively allowing Kalshi to offer event contracts on congressional control and other political topics.

Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan declined to comment on this story. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, Keaton Inglis, Antonio Brown, Arynne Wexler, and Clown World didn’t respond to our requests for comment.

— Mike Solana and Brandon Gorrell