Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan announced that former Zora CEO Jacob Horne has joined to develop products, focusing on improving the on-chain DeFi side. When Horne launched the first version of Zora in 2020, Coplan was one of the earliest users. The company will hold a DeFi user briefing to gather feedback from old users.

Horne just stepped down nine days ago. Zora co-founder Dee Goens has taken over as CEO, and the team has been reduced to fewer than ten people this year. The protocol fees on Base have dropped by about 99% year-on-year, and the quarterly revenue from creator tokens fell from approximately $5.64 million in Q3 2025 to about $107,000 in Q2 2026. Horne previously worked at Coinbase, developing the NFT marketplace, Ethereum Layer 2, and turning every homepage into a tradable token. After his departure, he stated that he would soon announce his next job, which is in the prediction market.

Coplan acknowledged that on-chain products have deteriorated with scale, and old users feel the company has shifted all its focus to U.S. compliance. His response is to integrate the two product sides behind the scenes rather than abandon DeFi. Polymarket now effectively operates two systems: an overseas on-chain prediction market and U.S. regulated contracts that will be launched after acquiring a licensed derivatives exchange through the CFTC path. ICE previously invested $2 billion at a valuation of about $9 billion and distributed market data to financial institutions; recently, they appointed former Amazon CFO Warren Jenson as the first CFO.

The hiring list also reveals the focus. The positions include crypto product manager, DeFi liquidity head, and U.S. derivatives compliance and institutional onboarding. Competitor Kalshi leads in regulated transactions. Brand endorsements and sports content are ramping up U.S. traffic, while on-chain delays and experiences are complaints from crypto-native markets.

The personnel changes indicate a shift from "media-style minting" to "building trading infrastructure". Zora turns content into tradable tokens, while Polymarket turns events into tradable contracts; Horne needs to address order books, on-chain execution, and performance at scale, rather than launching another social token. The briefing aims to bring back lost on-chain market makers and early users for review.

The market mechanism involves a dual-track resource competition under the same brand. Buyers include institutions needing U.S. compliant markets and crypto users wanting permissionless on-chain markets; sellers must separate engineering bandwidth between the two clearing systems at Polymarket. Beneficiaries are products that can integrate U.S. stock-level distribution with on-chain settlement; pressured parties include the already slowed DeFi front end and Zora, which needs the next step after creator token revenues collapsed. Funding and attention are shifting from NFT social to the compliance expansion of prediction contracts.

Source: Public Information