Polymarket is making a direct pitch to Wall Street, bringing on Lisa Mantil to lead institutional growth. She arrives after close to three decades at Goldman, where she was a partner and ran the firm's ETF accelerator, an in-house platform for clients building new investment products.
"The opportunity to join Polymarket is a rare chance to help shape an exploding asset class at an inflection point in its development," Mantil said in a release. "I've spent my career guiding institutions as they adopt new products and enter new markets, and I look forward to bringing that expertise to Polymarket as we build the institutional business and expand the role prediction markets can play across investment and risk-management strategies." Founder and CEO Shayne Coplan added, "Lisa's experience and relationships across the institutional world are world class."
The hire follows the official May debut of Polymarket's U.S. exchange. CNBC reported in August on a wave of staffing additions across the company's international and domestic operations. Earlier this month, Polymarket announced Warren Jenson as chief financial officer. Jenson has earlier experience at firms such as Amazon and Delta Air Lines.
Prediction markets have seen activity climb over the past year, driven largely by retail traders gravitating to sports-related markets. Platforms are now seeking institutional liquidity, even as some potential participants wait on the sidelines amid a fight with state regulators over which authorities can oversee sports-related event contracts.
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Block trades are large deals negotiated privately to reduce price swings, a familiar tool on Wall Street. Rival exchange Kalshi in April became the first to complete one. Polymarket's non-U.S. venue, built on the Polygon blockchain, logged its inaugural block trade one month after that.
Brokers assisting the earliest institutional users told CNBC that Polymarket has discussed permitting block trades on its U.S. marketplace and that the capability is almost ready. Polymarket declined to comment on the status of block trades for its domestic platform.
If bigger traders show up, prediction markets could look less like retail-driven sports boards and more like venues with tighter spreads, deeper liquidity, and contracts aimed at hedging and price discovery. The bigger picture for everyday investors is whether these markets mature into tools institutions actually use, rather than curiosities that spike around big events.
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