Polymarket Heads to Wall Street with $2B ICE Backing

Polymarket had a breakout week: on Oct 7, Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE’s parent) announced up to $2B at a ~$9B post-money valuation, while September’s Stocktwits partnership launched Earnings Markets to 10M+ finance users. Together, ICE’s backing and the earnings push reframe Polymarket’s model: odds on corporate results are a higher-value, more monetizable signal than media/news predictions, positioning the platform less as a niche betting site and more as a data-and-liquidity layer that TradFi can plug into. Activity stays strong (>$300M weekly volume, >4M trades, >$180M OI) across politics, sports, crypto and now equities. Polymarket is on track to become a potential pillar of the financial stack while the sector heats up as rival Kalshi raises $300M at a $5B valuation, claims >60% global market share, and expands to 140+ countries, underscoring prediction markets’ move into the financial mainstream and the acceleration of blockchain-rail adoption.

Plume Brings Liquid Staking Into RWAfi with Dinero

On Oct 8, Plume announced the acquisition of Dinero, creator of one of Ethereum’s fastest-growing institutional liquid staking protocols. Dinero’s products include pxETH (a liquid staked ETH token for DeFi use), apxETH (an auto-compounding vault boosting pxETH yields, currently at 5.5% APY with a 1.6× multiplier), and ipxETH,  the institutional version optimized for custody and compliance. The protocol now secures 8,832 ETH staked across 276 validators, representing 0.0267% of total ETH staked, with 12,100 pxETH and 6,950 apxETH in circulation. By integrating Dinero’s ETH, BTC, and SOL staking suite (also behind pxBTC and pxSOL), Plume strengthens its RWAfi ecosystem, bridging liquid staking and real-world assets into a unified institutional yield layer for onchain finance.

MetaMask Adds Perps, Powered by Hyperliquid

On Oct 8, 2025, MetaMask introduced in-wallet perpetual futures trading powered by Hyperliquid, letting users trade 150+ tokens with up to 40× leverage directly from the mobile app. The move pulls high-volume derivatives into self-custody, boosting decentralized trading and advancing the “wallet-as-super-app” trend where trading, staking, and even social live in one UX. Early traction is strong: $53M cumulative MetaMask-perps volume (with $37M on Oct 9 alone), $26.8K in fees ($19K on Oct 9), and ~1,800 users so far. Contextually, perp DEX activity has soared, and Hyperliquid’s distribution is compounding via several wallet integrations: Phantom (July), Rabby (early Sept), Rainbow (early Oct), and now MetaMask, positioning Hyperliquid as the de facto backend for onchain perps across consumer wallets and pushing self-custodial derivatives toward the mainstream.

Variational, A New Perps Infra Layer on Arbitrum

Variational, a derivatives protocol on Arbitrum, is emerging as a key perps player by introducing a peer-to-peer clearing/settlement model behind Omni, a zero-fee perps app with no gas fees and $0.10 deposit/withdrawals, plus RFQ and spread-discount mechanics that keep more value with users via its OLP counterparty. Per Entropy's dashboard, Variational reached $18M TVL with $6M 7-day net inflow; 12K addresses created, 6K activated, and 3.3K live; and a Loss Refund system that has returned $453K to traders to date across 1,310 recipients and 5,817 refund transactions. This architecture rethinks onchain derivatives by enabling bilateral trading of perps/options/exotics while reducing leakage to external market makers; for Arbitrum, it adds a differentiated derivatives stack alongside established venues like GMX and Hyperliquid, potentially pulling more institutional-style flow (via the Pro app’s customizable OTC) and reinforcing the chain’s role as a scalable base for high-volume DeFi as RWAs and derivatives converge.

BNB’s Four.meme Overtakes Pump.fun

Four.meme, the memecoin launchpad launched in 2024 on BNB Chain, democratizes token creation with no-code tools, bonding curves for distribution, and instant PancakeSwap listings, mirroring Pump.fun’s UX. By October 2025, Four.meme saw 522K tokens created, 7K graduated, and $32M in cumulative fees. Activity is broad-based on both the trader and builder sides: 4.3M trader addresses across volume tiers (from ≤$1K to >$100M), and multiple top deployers each launching 1,000+ tokens. October saw a clear step-change: On Oct 8, 47K+ tokens created, ~$3B volume, and ~$4M fees, with Four.meme capturing 83% market share of tokens created vs Pump.fun, 92% of tokens graduated, and 87% of fees/revenue, underscoring how BNB’s launch rails are concentrating meme issuance and trading on BNB. In parallel, the ascent of Aster in perpetual futures, which surpassed Hyperliquid, strikingly underscores BNB Chain’s burgeoning momentum in 2025.

Nothing in this newsletter constitutes financial advice.

Always do your own research.

Dune Digest is all about cutting through the noise and surfacing the most relevant onchain trends. If you have insights, dashboards, or data-driven stories that belong in the Digest, drop your suggestions here.

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Dune Team

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