P2P.me was established to push boundaries with stablecoins, but the startup has determined that wagering on itself via Polymarket may have been a bridge too far.
In total, the company that bills itself as a non-custodial service for converting between stablecoins and cash signaled that it notched less than $15,000 in profits on the prediction market move. Still, it recognized how a small payday could carry outsized consequences.
“It created confusion and hurt trust,” P2P.me said. “We should have let the work, the product, and the mission speak for themselves. That was our mistake.”
We took our prediction markets position because we believed strongly in what we are building, and we wanted to show that conviction in public, with our own name attached. In an environment where many teams ask others to believe before they are willing to back themselves, we…
In the name of investor protection, Prohp3t said that MetaDAO would facilitate refunds for investors who want out before P2P.me’s public fundraise concludes on Tuesday. A spokesperson told Decrypt that $20,000 worth of refunds out of $6.7 million committed had been requested.
For P2P.me’s biggest backers, the conduct also came as a surprise. Some were unaware that the India-based stablecoin firm was betting on its own fundraise, two people familiar with the matter told Decrypt.
Before it began soliciting funds on MetaDAO, P2P.me raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by Coinbase Ventures and Multicoin Capital. A Coinbase Ventures spokesperson told Decrypt that the firm hasn’t allocated beyond the initial fundraise.
At the time that P2P.me placed its bets on Polymarket, the firm said on X that it had only received a $3 million “oral commitment" from Multicoin, which wasn’t binding. On top of that, the wagers were made 10 days before the public fundraising campaign went live, the company added.
Decrypt has reached out to Multicoin and Polymarket for comment.
