Cooper Midroni

product @OffchainLabs | writing @ | reading list @ | opinions are my own

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

to understanding where the world is going you must accept that “the future” is created every day by human decisions

this is a loud signal that prediction markets ARE financial markets. instead of palm-reading world events to speculate on financial proxies, markets will evolve to bet directly on the substrate of reality

congrats to @shayne_coplan and the entire @Polymarket team

[Shayne Coplan 🦅 @shayne_coplan]

Markets on everything.

We’re proud to announce that $ICE, the owner of @NYSE and the largest exchange company in the world, is making a strategic investment of $2 billion into Polymarket, valuing us at $9 billion post-money.

Our partnership with ICE marks a major step in bringing prediction markets into the financial mainstream. But in addition to that, it’s a monumental step forward for DeFi. ICE is the one remaining founder-led exchange company, and Jeff is all-in on utilizing his assets, including NYSE, to usher in a new financial era of tokenization. We’re humbled to be working together on this endeavor. ICE will also begin distributing Polymarket data to thousands of financial institutions around the world. There is so much to build when you combine the force of ICE’s institutional scale and credibility with Polymarket’s consumer + cultural savvy and distribution.

The past two years have been surreal. Going from a write off to creating a category, watching our vision become a reality. The Polymarket origin story is funny because it's a rare case of the dream being identical to how things played out. If I learned one thing, it’s that bold ideas are everywhere, hidden in plain sight. It just takes someone crazy enough to spend their life willing it into existence. That’s entrepreneurship: willing things into existence.

I remember reading Robin Hanson’s literature on prediction markets and thinking - man, this is too good of an idea to just exist in whitepapers. There were a million reasons why it shouldn’t work, countless arguments of why not to do it, and the odds were against us, but we had to try.

At the onset of the pandemic, I quite literally had nothing to lose: 21, running out of money, 2.5 years since I dropped out and nothing to show for it. But I knew we were entering an era where ways to find truth would matter more than ever, and Polymarket could play a critical role in that. After all, nothing is more valuable than the truth. It’s still a work in progress, but we’re honored to have made the impact we have thus far.

I’d also like to give a special thank you to all of our users, builders, and community members who have been with us since 2020. Your support will not be forgotten 🔮

Last but not least, I am deeply grateful for all of the support and hard work of my brilliant team. I’m getting to live my wildest dreams, seemingly against all odds, and I don’t take it for granted.

The best is yet to come… 🇺🇸

Que Sera Sera

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@gakonst they do it for the culture

[0xAllan @0x_allan]

Poked around the Uniswap analytics page recently, found some notable data points.

spoiler: @Arbitrum looking good here

🧵👇

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@USDai_Official setting a new standard for stablecoin innovation, giving users exposure to the AI infrastructure market

On @arbitrum your dollars can do anything

[Entropy Advisors @EntropyAdvisors]

A new chapter in @arbitrum's AI Infrastructure begins today.

With a market cap of close to $50M, @USDai_Official turns DePIN assets into money backed by US Treasuries for stability and tokenized GPUs for yield.

Track USDai’s market from day one with our new @Dune dashboard! 👇

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@j0hnwang a career in crypto also gives you an intuitive sense for separating real value creators from grift and mercenaries

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

the crypto industry is trapped in a 10,000 person prisoner's dilemma that allows cohorts of insiders to defect after only a short term of posturing alignment with no value delivery

this is what we mean when we say the capital structure is broken. so what do we do?

we can't stop teams from launching tokens. tokens are necessary to the formation of crypto products. instead, we can only check ourselves on how over-indexed our valuation models are on narrative and speculation. the richest multiples should be for teams who deliver

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

tokenomics with utility is security
tokenomics without utility is stored attention

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

this is the part of the industry I'll never understand

[EtherRock @EtherRock]

EtherRock 26 purchased for 135 ETH ($606,525)

1 hr ago (Aug-14-2025 09:32:11 PM UTC)

Txn: https://t.co/kGLetFeUJs

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@omnicryptx @joechalom Blockchains let users interact without needing to trust each other, because the network enforces the rules (code is law)

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

key takeaway from this clip: the concept of "trust commodities"

the core value of blockchain is the removal of trust between parties by guaranteeing correct execution with economic stake (usually a native cryptocurrency)

this is something CT knows but @joechalom puts it in a narrative wrapper ready to go mainstream. @ethereum is the leader of a new asset class. it is a trust commodity

his proposed valuation model for trust commodities is $1 of market cap for every $2 of assets secured by the commodity

[DeFi Dad ⟠ defidad.eth @DeFi_Dad]

If you do anything today, please listen to this 3-min clip on what @sharplink Co-CEO @joechalom refers to as The ETH Opportunity...

FYI, Joe is the former Head of Digital Assets Strategy at @BlackRock, who drove the creation of IBIT, ETHA, and BUIDL.

"The more assets and transactions that are secured on the Ethereum network, have been proven to increase the value of ETH..."

"If you look at the last 5 years, for each $2 secured on the network, on Ethereum and the L2s, it's driven about $1 of market cap value of Ethereum [ETH]..."

"And if you take a step back and say stablecoins are at this size today, but @SecScottBessent says it's gonna grow to a trillion over the next 3 years, if you look at the adoption of RWAs, which is in the first inning and can literally go j-curve, the value of tokenized assets which could be measured in the trillions or tens of trillions... they are gonna be secured by a decentralized network. We believe the vast majority is gonna be Ethereum. That is a bull case for ETH..."

"If more assets are secured on the Ethereum network, the value of ETH will go up, and the value of it being a trust commodity, the highest value of money, is gonna be critically important if you believe we are at a paradigm shift, and that's what I call the ETH opportunity. It's not a trade, it's an ETH opportunity."

"And for all of those who feel like they missed the early days of crypto, you are at still a very early entry point in the adoption of Ethereum and that is the long term ETH opportunity, not the ETH trade."

ACCELERATE 🚀

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@gmehta22 @jaltma honestly I continue to back it

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

what happens when the best rollup team joins forces with the best smart account infrastructure?

I'll let you be the judge

[Offchain @Offchain]

We've acquired @zerodev_app!

One of the most talented teams in crypto building next-gen smart accounts.

This reinforces our commitment to solving the hardest onchain problems and building a unified development platform for all teams, regardless of their mandate. 🧵

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@ollexuss interop will likely merit its own category. In a way this definition is happening with debates over what is and isn’t money transmission

DA networks I think will be nested under a more generic blockchain category and seen as specialized L1s

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

the SEC announcement only accelerates the inevitable. in the next 2 years the world's largest enterprises will choose their crypto-native partners & their tech stacks

it's a great time to be an incumbent team with a proven track record and a battle-tested product

if you're an up and coming team you need to fight to be considered top 3 in your category. failing that, you need to position yourself as next-gen for the laggards in years 3-4

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@ollexuss any team focused on latency / privacy / compliance on an infrastructure stack that has regulatory clarity (mainly certain L1s and rollups)

can't speak to interop infra or DA, which are two important infra categories that don't have much regulatory clarity yet

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@ajwarner90 @TrustlessState no one understands the business model of blockchains like @ajwarner90

[prestonvanloon.eth @preston_vanloon]

Tomorrow, 12 jurors will decide whether writing open source code is a crime. This case is about Roman's future and it is also about whether developers can be held criminally liable for immutable smart contracts they can't control. The precedent here is terrifying. If Roman is convicted for writing immutable code then every developer contributing to privacy tech, MEV protection, any DeFi protocol, or even blockchain protocols could face prosecution.

We already won against OFAC -- the Fifth Circuit appeals court ruled these contracts aren't sanctionable property. Now we need the jury to understand that you can't control what you can't change. This is the most important case in crypto. Not just for tornado cash, but because it decides whether America remains a place where we can build permissionless, privacy-preserving technology.

Code is speech. Privacy is a right.

Tomorrow, we find out if the SDNY jury agrees.

Free @rstormsf !!!

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

I don’t think content coins will be too bad for society. I always thought early Instagram was missing that killer feature of extracting from those lower than you in the social hierarchy

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

do you ever just give chatGPT your finished product for the greater good of humanity

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

@ajwarner90 much appreciated from the king of good takes 🫡

[Cooper Midroni @midroni]

every 6 months CT wakes up from a collective psyop campaign and clears out its stale narratives

today we can say what many were scared to say. Ethereum is thriving. its partnerships with L2s are healthy. it's the home of tradfi & finance adoption. we are all towing the same line and we have clear north star: to bring the world's financial system on chain