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Polymarket Acquires QCEX for $112M to Re-Enter US Market
Alpha Team
July 22, 2025
Polymarket's $112M QCEX Acquisition
Acquisition Details: Polymarket announced the acquisition of QCEX, a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange, for $112 million in cash and equity on July 21, 2025, to re-enter the US market. This follows a 2022 CFTC settlement where Polymarket paid a $1.4 million fine and blocked US users for offering unregistered binary options. The deal includes QC Clearing, a CFTC-regulated clearinghouse.
Regulatory Updates: The acquisition comes after the DOJ and CFTC notified Polymarket around July 15, 2025, that their investigations into potential US trading violations concluded without charges. CEO Shayne Coplan said: "Now, with the acquisition of QCEX, we are laying the foundation to bring Polymarket home — re-entering the US as a fully regulated and compliant platform." QCEX founder Sergei Dobrovolskii noted the licensing process began over 4 years ago.
Funding and Growth: Polymarket was reportedly nearing a $200 million raise at a $1 billion valuation, led by Founders Fund, building on $50 million prior funding. Rival Kalshi recently raised $185 million in a Series C round led by Paradigm at a $2 billion valuation in June 2025. Polymarket recorded $2.6 billion in trading volume in November 2024 and partnered with X in June 2025. Read More.
️ On today's Top Picks:
- ☀️ BitGo confidentially files for IPO with US SEC.
- 👀 Fogo to potentially launch Public Testnet this week.
- 💸 Strategy $MSTR to raise $500M to buy more Bitcoin $BTC.
- 🩸 CoinDCX exploited for ~$44M due to account compromise
Read time: ⏰ 5 minutes
Crypto News
• ⭐️ Polymarket acquires QCEX, a US CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse, for $112M; to re-enter the US market.
• Coinbase $COIN launches perpetual futures for the US market; features no monthly expirations, up to 10x leverage, & fees as low as 0.02%.
• ⭐️ BitGo confidentially files for IPO with US SEC; previously valued at $1.75B following a $100M fundraise in 2023.
• Digital Asset Products saw $4.39B of inflows last week, a new all-time high; Bitcoin $BTC ~$2.2B inflows, Ethereum $ETH ~$2.12B inflows, Solana $SOL ~$39M inflows, Ripple $XRP ~$36M inflows.
Alpha
• ⭐️ Fogo posts, "Big week," on X; to potentially launch Public Testnet this week.
• MetaMask launches MetaMask Missions; complete missions to earn entries to win weekly prizes.
• Rainbow co-founder Mike Demarais posts, "v2 soon," on X; Rainbow to release v2 soon.
• Boundless launches Mainnet Beta Silver Tier; complete onchain & social tasks to get whitelisted for the Boundless token sale plus bonus token rewards.
Airdrops
• Trusta launches $TA airdrop claim; eTrusta participants, Galxe participant, OG Dragon NFT holders, & more are eligible.
• ICYMI Airdrops, Checkers, & Points by Olimpio.
• ICYMI Weekly Airdrop Recap (July 5) by Earndrop.
• ICYMI Caldera launches $ERA airdrop claim; Caldera users, Caldera quest participants, & more are eligible; claim ends on July 31st.
• ICYMI Eclipse launches $ES airdrop claim; Eclipse users are potentially eligible; claim ends on August 15th.
Finance News
• Strategy $MSTR buys an additional 6,220 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$739.8M at ~$118,940 per BTC; now holds 607,770 BTC worth ~$71B.
• ⭐️ Strategy $MSTR to raise $500M via new Perpetual Preferred Stock IPO; to use proceeds to buy more Bitcoin $BTC.
• Trump Media & Technology Group $DJT buys $2B of Bitcoin $BTC & BTC-related securities; also allocated $300M to BTC options.
• Ark Invest $ARKK $ARKW $ARKF buys ~$175M of Bitmine $BMNR; sells ~$90M of Coinbase $COIN, ~$11M of Robinhood $HOOD, & ~$7M of Block $XYZ.
• Upexi $UPXI buys an additional 100,000 Solana $SOL for ~$17.7M at ~$176.77 per SOL; now holds 1,818,809 SOL worth ~$360M.
• DeFi Dev Corp buys an additional 141,383 Solana $SOL at ~$133.53 per SOL; now holds 999,999 SOL worth ~$198M.
Security and Exploits
• ⭐️ CoinDCX exploited for ~$44M due to internal account compromise; says no customer funds were impacted; launches bounty program offering up to 25% of recovered funds.
• Microsoft releases SharePoint security updates; patches actively exploited flaw targeting government agencies, banks, & more.
Token Unlocks
• LayerZero $ZRO / ~$56M / July 20th
• Avail $AVAIL / ~$19M / July 23rd
• Venom $VENOM / ~$12M / July 25th
Sourced from Tokenomist
Funding
• Questflow raises $6.5M in funding led by Cyber Fund.
• Quack AI raises $3.6M in funding from several investors.
• Nubit raises an undisclosed amount in funding from 071 Labs.
• WaveX raises an undisclosed amount in Strategic funding from Soneium.
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| PROTOCOL | ASSETS | APY |
|---|---|---|
 Spectra V2 (Ethereum) | SDEUSD | 104.91% |
 Uniswap V3 (Ethereum) | USDEUSDT | 43.94% |
 Peapods Finance (Ethereum) | USDC | 36.76% |
 Aerodrome Slipstream (Base) | EURCUSDC | 26.45% |
 Raydium AMM (Solana) | USDTUSDC | 26.29% |
 Convex Finance (Ethereum) | USDCUSDF | 24.65% |
 StakeDAO (Ethereum) | USDCUSDF | 23.72% |
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That’s it for today’s edition! See you soon.
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